


The Manifold Miseries of an Ill-Fated Ranger

by OmamThot



Category: Path of Exile (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Modification, Canon-Typical Violence, Cock Slapping, Cock Worship, Come Eating, Foreskin Play, Futanari, Gross, Humiliation, Misuse of Magical Flasks, Mommy Kink, Other, Overly Detailed Descriptions of Penises, Parasites, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Slavery, Squick, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:33:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26931439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmamThot/pseuds/OmamThot
Summary: A battered ranger washed ashore on the Twilight Strand, only to find herself in the embrace of an old flame. Quick to bounce back to her feet, she felt compelled to prove to herself and everyone else that she was back on top of the food chain. She was the biggest fish in the woods of Oriath, so why would it be any different on the dead continent of Wraeclast?What she had thought to be a delicious little snack became a nightmare she couldn't escape from. She would have to come to terms with the fact that she was barely a minnow among the dread beasts lurking in the decaying carcass of a long-dead civilization.
Relationships: Witch (Path of Exile)/Ranger (Path of Exile)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. In which no one appreciates poetry

**Author's Note:**

> Like all proper exiles, the ranger washes up on the Twilight Strand, doomed to die on the cursed continent of Wraeclast. But things don't quite go as they're supposed to. One might even think she's not the player character in an ARPG, destined to kill everything from flying busts to the very gods while accumulating an ensemble of gear that look like christmas ornaments glued to glowsticks.
> 
> Of course not, she's in a piece of explicit fanfiction. Not that she'll ever know of the true reason for her continuing hardships. In her eyes, it is all because of an alluring witch she should never have crossed paths with.
> 
> Come share the fruits of my malevolent imagination! They're here as much for your perverse, voyeuristic enjoyment as they are for mine.
> 
> This is actually the first fic I started writing, better part of a year ago, much because there were very few Path of Exile fics. I never quite managed to get it into a shape I was satisfied with and it had been languishing in my drawer since late spring. Now, ~~there still aren't~~ (there was a one in July!) any new fics so I'm doing my part.

“Come pluck your pretty little wallflower.”

“Just use that keyring,” she rattled the chains her wrists were connected to for effect and continued, “and I’ll remind you why my talented tongue is the only good thing about this half-rotten hulk we’re pickled in.”

The guard’s eyes seemed to sink under her helmet as if to hide her blush, and half-muttered, half-barked something about disciplinary action and a good whipping, which was just what the huntress wanted.

It was just as likely she would end up being the one doing the whipping. This was just about the only way to pass the time on a prison ship on the high seas, and it hadn’t taken her a long time to find a more or less willing guard who could persuade the rest of the watch to lend them a modicum of privacy for a moment.

Under the deck, in the windowless hold, the days blended into each other, but she was fairly certain it was dark outside. The swells of the waves had grown and shoved the innards of the ship to and fro unpredictably. The hold was surprisingly sensibly uncrowded considering the zeal the High Templar had had displayed for getting rid of all the undesirables in Oriath.

What sound carried over the continuous beating the hull took from the angry weather consisted of retching and an old man’s hymn. It sounded like a lunatic’s babbling to her. After the first week the other prisoners had given up on trying to silence him, and the guards were oddly reluctant to beat him. Like most of the daily misery in the hold, she had eventually learned to ignore him too.

Leading her by the chain, the guard was taking uncertain steps and wobbled over the sole of the prisoner deck, the huntress taking special interest at the way the backside of her naval breeches shook and wobbled as the heavy rolling banged the woman against a pillar. As unknown as the sea was to her, something about the way the ship threw them around didn’t discomfit her, and she had no trouble following even tugged by the lead.

The guard led her into a tiny cabin, locked the door and uncuffed her. The huntress rubbed her aching hands and wrists and smirked as the guard started undoing her belt.

“Alright, you sinful little whore, time for your daily exerci-”, the guard said but had no time to finish. 

Suddenly they were floating, bumped against the ceiling and suddenly they were engulfed by deafening, freezing darkness.

  


* * *

  


The tangled, soaked mass of kelp was thrown on the furrowed bed of basalt by a thunderous slap of frothing seawater. It was surrounded by bleak black-sanded shores, dotted with other islands of worn rock, too hammered by waves, wind and rain to play host to plants or anything less robust than barnacles or beachworms. Relentless years of erosion had carved a cove amidst the craggy cliffs rising above the roiling foamy mass. Somewhere along the horizon a thin streak of burning red heralded the dawn and the end of the storm.

An industrious crab crawled its way out of its home in one of the puddles collected on the holes in the rocks, and started combing through its serving of breakfast for any morsels smaller and less vigorous than itself.

A tentative poke at a promising protrusion ended up ruining the setting and the entire meal, for the lump of sodden greenery suddenly started heaving violently. After expelling a gout of algae-laden water, a cut-laden, bruised protuberance reached out of the tangle and tossed the hungry crustacean into the surf.

Torrential rain continued to pour on the beach. After a short, soggy rest, the mound roused with a prolonged, pained groan and started to peel itself apart. A ponderous affair, it had been dipped in the sea and thoroughly tenderized against the treacherous shoreline, it nonetheless resulted in a transfiguration from a collection of mixed sealife to a battered human being. A pale, wiry, short-haired blonde woman in torn roughspun clothes. Somehow she looked slightly more presentable now than after weeks in prison and a damp hold.

Weary eyes surveyed the foreboding landscape. Bodies were lying motionless along the shoreline, some of them recognizable as her former fellow convicts. She let out another groan, this one carrying a tone of despair rising beyond sheer physical exhaustion. Then another voice raised in response above the tumult of weather. Another survivor? It was a prolonged, throaty moan.

“Hello?” She called out shakily. “Are you hurt?”

She rose on shaky legs, muscles groaning in frustration and a myriad of cuts radiated displeasure on being rubbed by the coarse wet cloth clinging to her skin. “Don’t move, I’m coming to you!”

Dropping down the side of the rocks she started on, she followed the form of the next one towards the voice. It had come from somewhere up the shoreline, so whomever it was had to have been thrown there even more violently than her. Then she laid eyes on the man, sprawled unnaturally on his back on a low rock that had shattered his spine.

A grasping hand reached out towards her once he sensed her approach. His head jerked up, seeping pus and scrambled cerebral matter from the shattered side of his skull. His stomach was bloated to the point of bursting, the putrefying skin snaking with dark purple veins. This had been one of her jailors at the ship, based on the uniform. A more urgent moan crawled out of its throat as it tried to find purchase against the sand. A chorus of other hungry gravely groans emerged from the distance.

“Venarius’ shriveled balls!” She cursed and vaulted over a hip-tall rock as the world washed over in white, sparkling pain, struggled up and started limping away with purpose. The imprisonment and the brimstone-filled trumped-up accusations laid by the judge hadn’t bothered her, neither the sentence of exile to parts unknown, but now the deck was starting to look stacked against her. Not a weapon in sight, tenderized to purpleness, brined to the bones, alone and chased by the risen dead.

Her thoughts returned the past, to things that felt far and irrecoverable. To the sizzle of the fat corpulent lord’s fat succulent venison, to groping the said lord’s bountiful daughter in post-coital bliss in a lean-to by the campfire. To the calm autumn winds as the declining fire revealed a sky bristling with stars, the daughter softly snoring against her thigh. The contrast to her predicament stung. Where the hell was a quiver full of broadheads and a bow made of good yew when you really, REALLY needed a one?

  


* * *

  


A thinning drizzle beat her face with great gusts of wind as she hobbled away from the relentless pack of shuffling, moaning corpses. Her flight had attracted more of them, half a dozen by now, most of them too mangled to close the gap and tear into her. The leading one’s face she recognized from the hold, contorted into an agonized rictus, and yellow-red eyes bulging out of the sockets.

She was running out of what energy desperation and impending death had granted her, but the dead didn’t seem to be constrained by the limits of mortal flesh and continued at the same shambling gait. She rounded a twist in the shoreline after precariously sliding over a particularly slippery sheet of algae-covered rock, and spotted the mostly collapsed ruins of a keep straddling a low promontory jutting against the booming waters. A ragged, windblown stream of smoke rose from its half-toppled smokestack. Smoke could only mean people. Smoke could only mean safety.

“Oh buggerbear”, she exclaimed.

She saw defenders on the barricades straddling the ruined walls, throwing things at a hulking monstrosity of a man swinging angrily against the stakes arrayed to defend the entrance. Nothing about the way bits of severed wood flew at each blow suggested it numbered among the living anymore. Well, she was not about to lay down here and get eaten if there was a chance to die warm and dry.

After a few twisting turns among remains of wrecked ships and what looked like collapsed hovels fashioned out of flotsam, her pursuers seemed to lose track of her and she inched closer with care.

There’s no way around that big lump of meat, she needed to find something to keep it dead. She managed to find a more or less trustworthy length of sharpened wood among the refuse. She guessed that would pass for a spear since nothing decent was available. That ugly bastard had at least three heads on her in height, so she needed the reach desperately.

The thing looked like it might have worked as a plough-ox for a village or two when it had been alive. Its passing hadn’t made it any smarter, and it kept snapping the sharpened stakes like kindling. She started creeping towards it, hoping its senses were dull, and distracted enough by the defenders on the makeshift ramparts. Somebody had already sunk a sword into it, and several arrows jutted out of its torso. If she was any judge of it, it looked rather close to becoming dead again. If she was lucky, she could sneak right next to it, pull out the sword and behead it.

“Another round, boys and girls,” yelled a rough voice from behind the flimsy, gap-filled barricades.

Figures popped out from cover, rocks in hand, but the volley became even more ragged as they noticed the ranger creeping towards the thing. She distantly noted someone yelling something that ended in idiot and launched herself into a wavering charge with the scraps of strength she wasn’t quite certain she actually had.

The spear sunk into the back of the gravetroll’s thigh with a wet splurch, the tip splintering as it sunk in. The haft stuck something hard, the momentum snapping it in two. Splotches of something grey and dark red splattered on the sand, filling the air with the smell of fermented fish mixed with loose bowels. Suppressing a heave, she was struck in the side by one of the giant’s swinging hands as it staggered from the blow. She crumpled against the sand.

Despite being barely able to breathe, she twisted on the ground to regain sight of the ogrish revenant and went thoroughly pale. The thing pulled out the two-hander embedded in its chest and started limping towards her as stones smacked against it. She distantly noted more yelling from the parapets and contemplated why she hadn’t just loosed an arrow at the rich old bastard’s head, burnt his manor and taken his perky little-

“What now”, yelled someone. The huntress turned her head back to the beach. A trio of glistening, skinless men, awash in the dark red of coagulated bloody meat, ran past her and tackled the rotting colossus in unison. Their lipless mouths opened to sink their teeth into the rotting flesh, and limbs grabbed hold of everything they could reach, tearing and twisting, snapping sinew and cracking bone. Meaty-wet sounds filled the air as both the ranger and the besieged stared in complete surprise as the rotten terror moved less and less as it was methodologically dismantled.

A young wisp of a woman in an ill-fitting white tunic stomped barefoot along the beach, snapping the huntress from her trance. Besides the seaweed encrusting her black locks, mud dripping from her face and that murderously contemptuous stare, the ranger found her quite bewitching. Delicate facial features, hauntingly icy-blue eyes, creamy thighs barely covered by the wet tunic, nipples standing at rapt attention through the damp fabr- She stopped herself. This wasn’t the time for this.

The dripping flayed shuffled around idly like a pack of mutts, the pieces of the sundered giant discarded on the sand. Not exactly her choice of trusted hounds, but they did save her skin just as she was about to be sliced in half. She was no expert on the witchwork the church had forbidden, but it definitely looked like this woman was their mistress. Composing herself, the huntress spat sand out of her mouth and started trying to get up on her numb, cold legs.

A mariner’s hat, presumably sitting on the top of the head of someone slightly too short, popped up from behind the barricade. “Not another step from ye, waify brunette, waker of the dea- oww, what was that for, Tarky old chu- argh!” The hat abruptly disappeared, followed by a thump and cursing.

Another head appeared over the edge, belonging to a man with a bandaged eye.

“Stay right where you are, necromancer. I don’t know if it was you who’s been besieging us for three days, but we’re not about to let you and your pets inside. Walk away, or we’ll see if we still have some arrows to waste on you.”

The huntress was back on her jellied knees, holding her side. Waves of swirling grey washed over her field of view, but she fought against nausea and stood up. “Now hold on, Tark or whatever your name was”, she exclaimed trying to look tough. “She just saved my hide, and she sure as hell saved all of yours! Is this what passes for gratitude among the living? You’d send this young lady to her death? We both just washed ashore and we’re wet, hurt and miserable and you seem to have a cozy little fire going up there.”

The soggy mistress of the dead was measuring the huntress like she had just crawled out from under a rock. But her expression softened quickly. Hah, the ranger thought, a bit of charm and you’ll be warming that little bint by the big fire in no time. “How about showing some common decency?”

Something about this sat poorly with the man, who squinted at the ranger. It looked like he had just settled upon some choice words, but was interrupted by someone else behind the barricades. “Calm down Tarkleigh, she’s right. I can vouch for this one, I know her. As for you, witch, you’re welcome as long as you leave your pets outside.”

The coincidence struck the huntress like a sack of bricks. What were the odds of hearing that voice again, let alone here? Maybe she’d be warming up two little things by the fire. The huntress bet the loose tunic was the only thing the raven-haired little tart was wearing.

As she forgot herself on the sand, the witch walked by her and appraised her from head to toe and offered a wan smile. “Well, I guess you’re my hero today, warrior-woman.” A flick of her wrist and to the alarm of everyone else, the trio of oozing carcasses stopped moving and fell against the sand with a series of dull, wet smacks. She offered a helping hand to the wounded woman and they began to ascend the short ramp to the doorway.

Damn me, the huntress thought, her hands are as soft as a fawn’s tail.

  


* * *

  


As the flimsy driftwood-and-rope barrier that passed for a gate was opened from inside, the huntress was greeted by a trio of worn and decidedly forlorn people: a ragged mangy mutt of a man wearing a captain’s cap who presumably had attempted poetry during the earlier battle, the wounded-eyed brown-haired, almost rakishly handsome fellow who had undoubtedly lived through three times as many scraps as everyone else in the hole combined, and the young woman who had just vouched for her and the witch.

She was just as bedraggled as the rest of them, wearing the threadbare remains of a fine dress down her waist, and a scrap of cloth covering her bosom. Which had, by her estimate, lost some of its previous boundless substantiality. Sheesh, what had these people been not eating, and for how long? She’d have them eating out of her hand in no time.

In addition to the three, all available shelter was occupied by worse-faring people, nursing various wounds or waiting for the malnutrition and unsanitary conditions to claim them. The smoke from the single fire set in the remains of the keep’s fireplace intermingled with the sea and the sickeningly sweet smell of slow decay.

The girl- no, a woman now, she had to remind herself- was probably called Nelly. She certainly didn’t have that doe-eyed look of daddy’s pampered little girl anymore. How had she even ended up here? She was certain the last she heard, her father had been in good standing with the High Templar. Surely not even Dominus could find an excuse to damn someone like her to this. She didn’t look entirely happy to see the huntress. This was something she would have to rectify.

She was suddenly aware that the five of them were still standing at the gate. The man called Tarkleigh was eyeing them with contempt, and the questionable poet was looking like he was desperately trying to come up with a word that rhymes with titties. The woman was the first to break the silence. “Welcome to Lioneye’s Watch, or what is left of it. I’m Nessa, and these two are Bestel and Tarkleigh.” The mariner, addressed first, cleared his throat and spread his hands, trying to steal a moment to exercise his talents, but a kick in the shin and bedaggering glares quelled the words right in his throat. Nessa regarded the two survivors and grasped her upper arm with the other hand, which was still enough to catch the huntress’ attention. “We could use your help”, she continued.

Tarkleigh rubbed his brow and shook his head. “She’s right, we’ve been barely holding onto this damp pile of rocks.” He stared at the witch with wary eyes. “You’re both in better shape than everyone else who has washed up ashore alive recently.”

The sorceress seemed amused. “’Witch’ works just fine, since most people do prefer to stay on professional terms with me, daddy Tarky.”

Tarkleigh was too dumbstruck to pick up his jaw from the flagstones. Nessa intervened before he could collect himself. “But first we must tend to her-”

“You can just call me ranger, then.” She tried to sound suave, but the pain was just beginning to reannounce itself and crept into her voice. Her legs were starting to feel like leftover Purification Day pudding and she felt cold.

“-To the ranger’s wounds.” Nessa frowned and hurried to the huntress’ other side to keep her upright.

Bestel had already wandered off, chuckling to himself. Tarkleigh didn’t seem to be able to find any suitable words, so he just nodded and retreated to the encampment’s meager collection equipment. They settled by the fire, the witch nestling on the remains of a crumbled internal wall, and Nessa started inspecting the damage.

“This doesn’t look good”, Nessa concluded of the badly swollen and dark purple bruise on the ranger’s side. “I can’t treat internal bleeding, and if I could we wouldn’t have the supplies for it. You look like you were thrown in a sack with stones and down a hill.”

“Hah, the worst beating I’ve ever taken, it’s from an early morning swim and a little stroll on the beach”. She winced while trying to adjust her position and noticed that her eyes had trouble focusing. The huntress tried to steal a hold on Nessa’s hand, who reached out to help. The woman recoiled from the brief touch like it was burning hot.

“Looks like I’ll be joining your ward, nurse Nessa.” She tried to glance at the other patients but couldn’t see them. “I’ll be competing with the others for your tender ministrations.”

“No, don’t speak, just lie still. Moving will only make it worse.” She hesitantly reached out for the huntress’ hand and squeezed it.

Despite the undulating fuzz that seemed to have a wild party in her field of view, the ranger could see her concerned expression.

“You must promise me you will rest or you won’t be able to enjoy anyone’s ministrations. Possibly ever.”

A chortle from the ruined wall interrupted the moment. The witch lied on it, basking in the heat of the fire like a cat, curled inside the tunic. “That’s the case if you constrain yourself to mundane means, which in this case means no means at all.” A foot tentatively peeked out of the shirt, then both legs. The sorceress rose and walked to them, brandishing a small vial of red liquid, which seemed to swirl and undulate of its own will inside of its glass prison.

“Here, you might as well use this. I wouldn’t want my gallant hero to bleed to death on my account.”

Reluctantly, Nessa picked it out of the witch’s hand like it was carrying the plague. “Thaumaturgy. I’ve seen what using it does to people. What does it do, turn her into one of your pets instead of rising as one of the shamblers?”

“Hmpf. Worries of lesser, ignorant people. Nothing of the sort, it is just concentrated lifeforce. It poses no harm to someone like her. Wouldn’t try it on the others, they might explode. Unless you’re feeling curious.”

Nessa frowned at the witch and then at the vial. She vacillated for a moment and then growled at the amused heretic. “If this kills her..”

“Just get on with it, fishwife. She does actually look like she’s dying in your hands.”

Nessa glared at her murderously, but then tilted the ranger’s head back, who was barely conscious at this point, and poured the vial down her throat. The liquid seemed to go down poorly, provoking a coughing fit. Nessa yelped in surprise and pain as the huntress’ nails tore into her arms as she convulsed. The ranger managed to turn aside and heaved dry. Bestel and Tarkleigh bolted up to the fireplace brandishing weapons at the witch, but they were shooed away by Nessa.

The ranger was gasping for air and pulled Nessa closer. “What in God’s golden testicles was that stuff”, she rasped, eyes wild, still attempting to cough up nothing. “Nelly, don’t tell me you haven’t seen that statue Venarius put up in Oriath square. Big hanging-”

Nessa slapped the raving woman on the face and tore herself from the grip. She folded her arms protectively around herself, bleeding slightly from the tiny tears on the skin. She was trying to suppress tears. The huntress laid on the stones, the manic energy on her face fading fast as she slipped into unconsciousness. Nessa seemed to deflate.

“So, is she always this romantic with you?”

The witch smirked as Nessa stormed off.

  


* * *

  


She woke to a pounding headache and a parchment-dry throat. Every single muscle in her body ached. She drank deeply of a crude cup of what had to be stale rainwater and only then noticed Nessa kneeling next to her, wearing an apologetic expression. Had she drunk too much again and fallen asleep sucking the girl’s prodigious teat? No matter, they still had some freshly-killed deer to feast on to cure the hangover and- Oh. This wasn’t her camp or her sweet obedient little Nessa. This was that miserable damp pile of worn stones on the coast of Wraeclast. The ranger grabbed the cup and poured the rest over her face.

“I don’t know what came over me, I never should have hit you. I panicked and I.. I got you a gift to make amends.” Nessa looked at the ground as she spoke and a blush crept on her cheeks.

She produced a spearhead, engraved with what looked like human figures despite the rust and corrosion that must have whittled away at it for quite a while. Most of the rust seemed to have been sanded off and it was polished with who knows what.

“Bestel claims it must have been made by the Eternals, but I don’t see how something like this could have survived here for almost three hundred years.”

She glanced at the ranger and shrunk from the eye contact. Despite how ragged the huntress looked, her eyes were beginning to look dangerous.

“Tarkleigh agreed to part with a mostly good spear shaft. I hope y-”

Nessa yelped as the huntress almost pounced on her. “Well well, look who’s eager to get back into my good graces.” 

She took the spearhead from Nessa’s hand and gently caressed the woman’s cheek with its edge. Nessa inhaled sharply, her eyes unfocused and the slight crimson on her face turned to full bloom.

“N-” She stammered, tried to clamber up but only managed to fall on her behind. The huntress began to crawl after her, but Nessa brought up her foot and smashed it against the invading face. “Not here”, she snapped.

A hoarse chuckle alerted them to the audience they had gathered. They separated and Nessa clambered up and adjusted the remains of her ragged dress, fuming. Bestel was grinning from ear to ear, his yellowed teeth almost gleaming. The witch was still perching on the wall, observing, head propped up against the hands, and the huntress realized she could almost catch a glimpse of pale swells through the oversized collar.

“Could you for just one moment be serious, you beast? This isn’t the time or the place for this!” Nessa folded her arms and fumed. “People are dying here, you almost died and you still must get what you want, when you want it!”

The ranger wiped grime from her face and frowned. “So you want me to do something about it?” Should have known.”

“That’s not what I-”

“Oh shut up, I know what this is really about.” She paused, but continued with a grin. ”After I return triumphant, we’ll see about times and places and things I want.” She coughed and spat phlegm at the stones.

“But now I’ll have to see a man about a pole.” She walked away towards Tarkleigh, holding the spearhead, ignoring Nessa’s challenging furious gaze.

The witch smirked as she watched Nessa flee down the stairs, holding back tears.

Tarkleigh parted with the shaft gingerly but remained tight-lipped. The ranger reasoned he was probably after tail himself, but lacked the courage to stand up to the reigning champion.

“So what’s this thing about saving lives, ‘old chum’?”

His eyes radiated cold, premeditated murder at her. “We’re short on everything, but the worst part is having nothing but seaweed and rags to treat the sick. Bestel’s ship ran aground nearby and he reckons the ship’s stash of medicine is still intact.”

”Go easy on him, I think his head went a bit soft after his crew got eaten before his eyes. Damned cannibals.” He added.

She tested the strength of the pole, deemed it passable and affixed the spearhead on it.

The scrawny soft-bellied man sat on a barrel, clad in wretched dark breeches, whistling a tune known only to himself, and in tune that surely made sense only to him. His captain’s tricorne sat on his eyes, which he tipped up as soon as he noticed her approach. He recognized her and jumped up. “Ah! The ravaging Ranger, river of the rotten revenant, remorseless ravisher of- Alright, alright, you made your point! No need to stick me with the pointy bit.”

He pushed the speartip away with a finger. “This about the Merry Gull?” He paused for the ranger’s nod and went on, “well, I was the unfortunate captain of the good ship. The unfortunate ship, really, we ran aground on a tidal island and it still sits there. My unfortunate crew too, after a fashion.”

He beckoned the huntress to the small stretch of sandy beach within the walls and drew an intricately unrepresentative map of the way to the island.

She pretended to not notice Nessa sitting on an outcrop staring out to the sea.

  


* * *

  


The witch was waiting by the other gate looking coy when the ranger got back. 

“So you got into a fight with your girlfriend. I hope you don’t mind if I keep you company.” The ranger strode past her, giving her a noncommittal grunt. She hurried after her. “I never took you for the gruff loner type. Though it does sort of suit you.”

The ranger looked at the witch’s harrowingly pale blue eyes and raised an eyebrow. “They never stay mad at me for long. They just need to be reminded about their place every now and then. She’ll be back at my feet where she belongs.” She let her eyes wander for a while. “Didn’t you bring your pets?”

“Oh, I thought they could use a little vacation after all that hard work. I think Dominus is going to do Venarius’ hair, Avarius will paint their nails and then they’re going to gossip about boys all night.”

The ranger chuckled. “You’re a fucked up little thing. Not that I don’t like it.”

“We’re all a little fucked up here, whatever we were back in Oriath.”

She chewed on the words over a few steps. “You know any other tricks? As willowy as you are, I don’t think I’d want to carry you over my shoulder while fighting cannibals.” The huntress thrust at the air overarm with her spear to underscore her point.

“Oh, I know all kinds of tricks. Maybe I’ll end up showing you a one or two.” The witch waved the small piece of gnarled wood in lazy arcs. To the ranger it seemed decidedly less impressive than the skinless dead men from earlier.

“Maybe I’ll look forward to it,” mused the huntress and sniffed at the air. “Maybe we need to think about getting something to eat. I’m not going to retain any strength if I keep chewing on just seaweed.”

  


* * *

  


They walked along the coast as the sun glared down at them, yet to reach its apex. The wind blew from the sea, damp and chilly. There weren’t many things that looked like worth eating. You could see an occasional rotting gull, skewered on wooden spikes. Then an encrusted mass crawled up from the waves in front of them. It was a mockery of a crab, the size of a hunting dog, clad in what looked like flagstones covered in barnacles and brandishing a serrated crushing claw that looked like it was designed to pry open its peers. It could probably snap a thigh in half without trying. It oggled at them for a while, trying to decide whether it should.

“Pin it down, preferably by the big claw. I’ll show you the first trick”, the witch whispered.

The huntress leapt, aiming to crack the thing right open. The tip hit it in the top of the shell, skidding along its side, leaving a shallow gash in its carapace, sending embedded refuse flying. The thing was surprisingly agile, almost grabbing a hold of the spear. The ranger batted the claw aside and danced with feints and parries with the crab.

She found an opening, and jammed the spearhead in the third joint of the pincer. She then applied her weight to the haft, trapping the crab, standing just outside of the reach of the smaller claw.

Its other eyestalk remained fixed on the ranger, but the other swivelled towards the witch, who was now creeping up to it from behind. The crab tried to wiggle around to reach her with the other pincer, but she found an angle it couldn’t touch and placed a hand on its shell. The crab started thrashing wildly as its damp carapace started to release steam. The pinned joint creaked and cracked as the huntress fought to hold it against the sand.

With a feat of desperate strength, the crab threw off the witch, who yelped in surprise but remained on her feet. The large claw twisted off on the joint, releasing the now disarmed crustacean. It started for the water on wobbly legs at surprising speed, but then its gait faltered and it slumped against the sand, an outstretching wave’s tip meeting it. Sizzling steam and occasional droplets of boiling liquid escaped from its joints.

The ranger roared triumphantly. “Ha, some trick!” She picked up the claw, surprised at its sheer weight. “Can you do this thing too? It’s my favourite part!”

They devoured it on the sand, the ranger prying open parts of the shell with the leverage offered by the spear. They ate in silence, the ranger casting leery grins at the witch, who smiled back at her. They shamelessly pigged out on the salty meat, not really caring about the tough texture or bizarre gaminess unbecoming of fresh seafood. The fare at Lioneye’s Watch was almost intolerable, and there wasn’t enough of it.

Filled to almost uncomfortable satiety, they saved most of the legs for later. They continued along the winding beach as the thrill of the fresh kill and full stomach drove the ranger to wax eloquent on the thrills of hunts past.

  


* * *

  


Soon the wind eased. A faint smell of smoke washed over them. As they walked it became stronger and combined with the smell of burning flesh. They bypassed a group of crustaceans that were protecting their territory by pummeling a lone undead with hails of small rocks until it stopped moving. Walking into their fields of fire would likely have maimed them beyond recognition.

A blanket of thin smoke clung to the coastline like mist. The wind was too weak to disperse it entirely. They spied its source from afar, a large bonfire. It must have been fed with damp wood. Someone must have been roasting dinner over it too. The chances were that dinner was human. The ranger hoped it was already dead before roasting. As delicious as the crab had been, she had no desire to share its fate.

The fire was situated on the top of a small rocky hill that blocked the way forward. No one could be seen on its slope, alive or dead, unless they were hiding among its crevices. Strands of smoke drifted down lazily. Trying their best to ignore the sting in their eyes and their nostrils, the two crept up the hillside among narrow paths leading up.

“This isn’t even an ambush”, the ranger whispered to the witch, “this beast is lying here with its mouth ajar, daring us to walk into its teeth.”

“No way around it then, you crack its teeth and I’ll tie its tongue into a knot.” The witch glanced up towards the swirling smoke.

“I still have a trick up my sleeve, and I think we’ll need to see if you can handle it.” She produced a small green gemstone, probably literally from the sleeve since the ranger couldn’t see her carrying anything besides the stick, or anything to carry it in.

“Give me your spear, I need to put this on it.”

The ranger frowned in puzzlement. She had heard of thaumaturges using sorcerous jewellery. She didn’t like the idea of exposing herself to such deviltry. But the witch was fine despite having carried the thing from since when. She ought to be fine toting it around on a sturdy length of wood. She handed it over and became even further puzzled.

Somehow the witch found a recess for the jewel on it, a recess she was certain she hadn’t seen before. It sat there like it was placed by an expert jeweller. The ranger didn’t dare take a closer look or touch it to figure out how.

“I am not certain if it works exactly like the others, but the Tears are reputed to be eager servants. I know enough that if you strike at an opponent and will them hurt, they’re due for a nasty surprise.”

The ranger nodded slowly. Back in Oriath things had been reasonably simple. The strong ate the weak, and she had been strong. Not as strong as the Templar who towered over all, but strong nonetheless. In Wraeclast you had to kill things twice. Its animals were tougher, faster and deadlier, as if to spit on mankind’s tools and weapons that had let them rise above all creation elsewhere.

On the other hand, this land seemed to hold many mysteries. Maybe ones that would allow someone bold enough to grasp them to rise back to the apex. Assuming they survived to that point. Well, if there was going to be someone, it was bound to be her.

They started to inch up the final rise to the hilltop. The only living thing they could see was a woman sitting by the fire, eyes closed. The ranger realized the firewood wasn’t damp at all. The only thing in the fire she could see was scorched bodies.

Sorcery again. The ranger tried to suppress the shivers that ran down her back. Despite the heat washing over her in turbulent gusts, she felt cold.

The woman, holding a staff in her lap, smiled at them. “You took your time ascending. I saw you in the fire.”

She was clad in very little, and that little was worn by the weather. It must have been fairly luxurious at some point. She wore jewellery and fine sandals with gilded lacing running up the legs. The stone on her forehead- no, in her forehead- seemed to glow with an inner flame.  
“Did you come to offer yourselves? Or do you wish to buy my clemency with that annoying little keep of delicious little morsels you came from?” She opened her eyes and smiled, her eyes shining with dancing flames. Webs of cracks opened on her skin, exposing flesh that glowed as if straight out of a forge.

The witch rolled her eyes. “I’m not doing this nonsense”, she said in a single exhalation, inhaled deeply and her long hair swung upwards with complete disregard for gravity, and each hair separated from the others as if allergic to each other. White-hot arcs of lightning snaked out of the ground around her, and up her body, coalescing to her fingertip, pointed towards the woman in flames.

The fiery lady swung her staff above her, flames pouring out of her mouth as she chanted and a cloak of flames embraced her just moments before a blinding, snaking shaft of light connected her and the accusing finger.

The woman-shaped inferno waved her staff above her head as the lightning smote at her waning ward. The ranger could have sworn she heard the witch cackle above the deafening crackle. Just as the death of the swirling shield of fire sent bits of fire everywhere, the witch glanced up. She went wide-eyed, and jumped down the hillside.

Streaks of flames were raining down the sky. The huntress hadn’t even noticed it, she dove with her spear couched right at their opponent as soon as she saw the shield explode.

The woman seemed to have forgotten the ranger’s existence, and brought the staff down to deflect the thrust. It connected just behind the spearhead, shoving it aside and setting her up for a counterblow to the ranger’s head. The woman flinched, a tiny gash opened on her exposed stomach.

This was what the gemstone could do, the huntress asked herself. A tiny cut on the stomach, like from a leaf? She might as well flip the thing, cut out her own throat! The little wench was nowhere to be seen and she was stuck fighting some sort of a shaman with a spear that cut as well as a blade of grass!

The ranger stepped out of the path of an overhead swing, and sent forth a series of jabs at the flaming woman. The woman swirled, the staff spun and hot embers flew as she parried them each in turn. The huntress barely registered the heat as some of the flecks landed on her skin and sizzled, trying to keep her opponent from plying her craft.

Something definitely was going on though. Each of her jabs had opened more of those tiny, almost imperceptible cuts on the woman’s skin. Or they would have been unnoticeable, had they not started weeping dark, crimson tears that ran down the woman’s body. Some of them sizzled as they hit the bizarre, glowing patches of flame that spotted the lady’s body.

The ranger could see her opponent was tiring. The woman hadn’t even noticed she was slowly bleeding all over from a dozen places, and her swings and parries became slower and wider by the second. There, a bad step placed the lady in a poor position. The huntress feinted, provoking a wild swing from unsure footing. She seized the opportunity and thrust. The blade skimmed off the edge of the staff, sending small splinters flying.

The tip of the spear sunk into the woman’s belly with a wet squelch. She staggered from the impact. The staff hit the ranger on the shoulder, too feeble to do more than bruise her. They separated, the spearhead ripping out. The woman raised her staff, tried to call more fire from the sky.

Her muscles flexed from the effort, and the woman stopped when she realized something was splattering noisily on the ground. Her gaze dropped onto the ground, to the pool that was quickly spreading on her feet.

The ranger could only stare as the woman died, the surprise locked on her face as she toppled. The falling flames licked at the huntress’ back and some of the smell of burning flesh must have been her own, but she hardly felt a thing.

The witch popped up the path once the last flaming projectile had rained down from the sky. “I must admit I didn’t expect that.” She crouched down next to the still sizzling corpse and poked it with her driftwood stick.

“Neither did I”, admitted the ranger and wiped sweat from her face. The bonfire was dying along its creator and the corpses smoldered on the ground.

She took hold of the pointy end of the haft, avoiding touching the spearhead directly, and pointed at the emerald gem. “What the hell was this about, you little witch? I thought you almost had me killed for trusting you!”

“I did say I didn’t know what it does exactly. I’m not the type to poke at people with sharp objects. But it didn’t get you killed. You didn’t end up needing my help.”

“Well.. yes, I suppose so. But don’t you dare leave me hanging like that again. I might end up spanking you until you tell me you’re sorry.”

The witch chuckled. “Yes, I imagine you will.”

The ranger stopped to stare at the corpse in its steaming pool of black blood. The witch joined her, bent over to poke at it with her gnarled stick.

“Won’t be much of a zombie, this one. It might save some trouble later if we dispose of it properly now.” She turned to the ranger, who was beginning to gather her wits, and ran a finger down the woman’s cheek. “Won’t you do the honors, my champion? Or will a lady have to dirty her delicate little hands?”

“Don’t you worry your crazy little head about such things. I’ll do it.” She stepped up to the head, raised the spear and muttered. “It’s only proper.”

  


* * *

  


The sun had crawled past zenith an hour or two ago. The island, with its mesa of hard stone, was very visible from the hilltop. The low tide exposed the sandy beach and detritus, and a ship hulk could be seen, lying against the seaward side. The Merry Gull. It wasn’t far, maybe an hour there and back. They descended, ran into an ambush by a group of furious cannibals and drove the rest off after the first few expired very quickly and very violently.

The ranger was back in high spirits. “You know what, witch? I’m not sure I resent ending up here. I mean sure, this doesn’t feel like a proper hunt, who would want to roast up a rotten corpse afterwards? Not that the fresh ones are any better, who knows what nasty diseases or parasites cannibals end up with. But after every kill I feel like I’m one step higher up these twisted rungs of life.”

The witch walked alongside her, occasionally glancing at the huntress with cool disinterest that did nothing to stem the woman’s verbal tide.

“I suppose there’s some reward to itself, just getting stronger. But I feel this is just building up steam. Hunting is simple: the long anticipation of the stalk, the action that lasts for but a moment and the concrete reward of a kill that can be enjoyed for days. Shank to mouth, you know what I’m saying? If I don’t find release soon, I think I will just explode. Do you think we’ll still have to fight something before we find the goods?”

The witch grunted noncommittally and the ranger droned on.

On the shallows to the island they encountered a new threat: bizarre creatures formed out of seaweed, appendages of sea creatures and dark, frothing water that yielded to cut and thrust like flesh. They didn’t prove able combatants, but their fury and lack of vulnerable organs made them difficult to dispatch. There were some objects of interest scattered among the detritus they left behind.

The witch laid eyes on numerous bizarre stones and trinkets that didn’t look valuable to the huntress, but she did find a small shield that wasn’t completely rotten. It did occur to the ranger that its previous owner might not have relinquished the shield voluntarily, but she pushed the thought aside, certain it would serve her better.

The cannibals seemed to be avoiding the island. What few critters called it home resented the intrusion by the party, but proved easy to fend off in small numbers. This was starting to look like a done deed to the ranger. A few more minutes of walking, grab the medicine and haul it back by nightfall.

Nessa was going to be in for some rough handling. She was certainly due some. Maybe she could persuade the witch to attend to her as well. Strenuous physical activity always got the huntress worked up, and she had worked up quite an appetite today.

  


* * *

  


The hulk of the Merry Gull laid against the side of the rocky side of the island, the hull smashed open, masts in pieces. Tattered remains of the sails fluttered in the wind. What stood between them and their goal was a man, a cannibal, wearing tattered breeches and encrusted with scales of glimmering frost from head to torso.

And his friends. Some came out from hiding inside of the ship, grinning, brandishing clubs and whatever objects sharp or heavy enough to use as a weapon.

The ranger swivelled. Some of the cannibal’s other friends had followed after them, well out of sight since they hadn’t been spotted. They hadn’t seemed very formidable before, but these numbers combined with an effective leader wasn’t looking like a fortuitous combination.

The witch didn’t seem to like the odds either. “Get me fresh corpses and we’ll walk out of this”, she whispered, “the boys need to come back from their vacation early.”

The ranger thought about it for a moment as the flankers closed in on them. She had heard the Ezomytes called out champions from opposing armies to duel. Maybe she could finish him off before anyone else interferes. “Hey, you shrivelled shrimp! That wasn’t your girlfriend we killed earlier, was it? She was uh… just full of hot air!”

The glimmering man looked at her with a confused sneer. Then the cannibals started pelting them with rocks from both sides. Then the yelling started, accompanied by the sound of bare feet pounding against the sand.

  


* * *

  


The ranger reckoned she would never get used to the blood-dripping creatures emerging from their prisons of skin like newborn chicks casting aside the remains of their shells. They had been thinning the herd alongside the witch, while the huntress concentrated on killing the frost-encrusted cannibal. She had been dodging waves of preternatural stakes of ice that burst out of the ground and disappeared right after, impaling anything standing in their way.

She dove and scored a hit against the man’s side, but the thin coating of ice seemed to function as armor, the tip skidding and screeching along the surface. A wave of frigid air and ice particles blasted at her from the cut, chilling her to the core like the winds that blew from the sea in Oriathan winter, ignoring the thickest of clothing and lesser forms of shelter. A small streak of crimson colored the ice, seeping through in lazy rivulets. Teeth chattering and shivering, she landed and made a feeble attempt at a thrust, her numb muscles refusing to move like they’re supposed to.

The man grinned widely. His teeth were fangs of crystalline ice, coated in specks of dark frozen blood. He brought his club up to block the slow strike, not even noticing the tiny cut opening on his chest, and reached for something on his belt. It was a fine glass flask, silvered with some sort of relief on the broad side.

Oh shit, she thought, if that’s anything like what the witch had lying around, she couldn’t let him take a swig. The ranger started jabbing repeatedly, trying to apply pressure.

The man laughed, knocking the sluggishly thrust spear aside with leisurely swings each time. He took his time uncorking the flask with his teeth, dodging and parrying the seemingly mindless, desperate attacks of the huntress.

Just as he was about to take a swig, he noticed the lines of blood that dripped down his arm and frozen in place. The tiny cuts were still bleeding, and in places the fresh blood ran over the mounds of their solid predecessors. He growled and tipped the vial on his lips.

This was enough of a distraction that the huntress landed a shallow cut past his guard, skimming along the length of his exposed arm. It bled more readily, like wounds are supposed to.

The man roared, and swung the club at her forward arm. She twisted her grip, trying to intercept with the haft, but the speed of the blow was more furious than before. Wood rang against wood, but it was accompanied by the muffled thump of struck flesh. She yelped as pain spread through her forearm.

The man swung like a maniac and the ranger had no choice but to give ground, parrying and dodging wildly. The numbness and sluggishness had gone away mostly, but her arm ached each time the haft received a blow. Her guard was becoming slower and weaker, she retreated step after step.

Almost all of the man’s ice-covered skin was tainted with a thin sheen of red. The huntress tried to keep him from closing the distance on her, but the flurry of blows showed no sign of abating. The man was so awash with blood that he had started to look like one of the witch’s zombies.

There was no way she would be able to hold. She had to distract him and run. It was possible they could handle him together. She kicked up sand and spun her spear, knocking aside the club with the sharp end and struck him in the leg with the other.

She ran, clutching her spear, feet pounding hard at the damp sand. It took her a moment to notice the sand had been dry minutes before. The tide.

“Oh shit, we have a problem!”

The witch was looking at her, puzzled. One of the zombies, she couldn’t tell which, was next to her, tearing off the arm of a screaming cannibal at the shoulder.

“Come on! Do something! He’s right behind me,” she yelled as she ran up to the witch, huffing and puffing from the prolonged exertion.

“I don’t see why I would,” replied the witch, “seeing how he’s not.”

“What?” She spun around and braced to receive a charge.

There was no one charging, however. The man had fallen into the surf face-first after covering half the distance. She stared at the corpse in disbelief. He had been full of fury just moments before, ready to beat her skull in. It didn’t make much sense, but the only way she could explain it was that he had bled out midstep. She shook her head, trying to shake out the confused thoughts.

“Shit! We have to find the medicine before the current washes us off”, the ranger exclaimed.

“Damn it!” The witch glanced at the few remaining cannibals running for their lives, about to round the corner.

“It’s alright boys, let them go.” She looked at the hulk. “They must have had some kind of a safe place prepared for when the tide rises. I’ll start looking, you search his belongings, in case you didn’t completely soak and ruin all of them.” She disappeared into the rent hull, the pack of glistening zombies following after her.

The ranger frowned, but turned over the corpse that had flopped down belly-first. What he had on seemed very ordinary for everyone stuck on the coast of Wraeclast: dirty tattered clothing, most of it probably reclaimed from their victims, or reanimated corpses. Now that he was dead, he seemed decidedly less intimidating. His set of icy teeth had started melting, and the water and the warm air had already washed off most of the frost that had covered his upper body. 

What interested the ranger was the thing he had worn on his belt and discarded on the ground after taking a sip. It was a decanter of finely blown, colored glass with engravings and some kind of silver-gilding. It had been full of some sort of a pearly, greenish liquid, but it had emptied the rest of itself on the sand. The rising water was about to wash away the stopper, but the ranger palmed it along the flask and hurried to the hulk.

  


* * *

  


The swelling waterline rose quickly up to the main deck. The witch’s search had produced the ship’s medicine chest from below deck. The lowest ones were full of sand, anchoring the hulk in place. One of the dead men, the ranger wasn’t sure which one of Venarius, Dominus or Avarius it was, hauled it up to the captain’s quarters in the sterncastle. Despite the broken windows, it was still the best shelter from the elements that wasn’t underwater.

“I think I’ll give the boys the rest of the night off.” The witch dismissed her pets, and they thudded with wet splats onto the quarterdeck. The sun painted the ship and the mesa with it’s concluding red glare as it hugged the horizon.

“Captain Bestel really hit rough times”, remarked the witch as she peeked in the cabin, “a canopy bed in a ship? Imagine sleeping on stone under the sky after having gotten used to this.”

It was a lacquered hardwood monstrosity with carved posts. The curtains had fallen off and the bedding seemed damp but not rotten. The ranger marched up to the bed and examined the mattress. In its better days, the bed would have come close to the splendour of Nessa’s old man’s bed. In hindsight, it was probably the reason he had sicced the Templar on her.

“The little princess, it’s stuffed with feathers!” The ranger tested the thickness with her hand and grinned victoriously. She rummaged around the cabin as the witch sat down on the edge of the bed and observed.

“What are you looking for?” The witch cocked her head and stretched her legs, the feet first bending to meet each other and then away.

“Well, the sun is setting and I want to be able to see what I’m doing. Ha!” She produced a metal flask of oil. There were a few intact oil lamps left in the cabin. She filled them and brought them to the bedside. “Mind doing one of those tricks to light these up?”

The witch raised a brow and then blew the first one a kiss. The lamp became alight, as if something had travelled through the air unseen. She repeated the gesture as the ranger arranged more lighting around the bed, providing additional illumination as the rays of red coming through the shattered window panes climbed up the opposite wall and dimmed to nothingness.

The ranger finished with the lights and turned to the witch.

“Now, I’ve been a good girl all day. I’ve killed all manner of weird things, watched after your pert little ass. I’ve been a productive member of what passes for society”, she bumped the medicine chest with a foot, “and helped find this thing full of Templar swill so everyone else in Lioneye’s Unwashed Armpit won’t rot away.”

The ranger sauntered to the bed, where the witch was still watching her impassively. “This is the part where I fuck your brains out in Bestel’s little love nest.”

“No,” replied the witch.

The ranger stopped, confused. The witch’s expression was unreadable. She had been certain this was a done deal. What had all the unabashed coquettishness been for? Then her expression lit up.

“What are you playing at? I’ve seen the hungry looks. You’ve been promising me things all day with your eyes. Don’t pretend you’re not letting that tiny little tunic ride up your thighs on purpose. You’re driving me nuts, you saucy little seductress.”

The witch cocked her head to the other side, hands resting on the mattress. “No.”

The huntress grinned widely. Now it was clear! “Oh.”

She placed her knee between the witch’s, reached for handholds on the bed and loomed over her. The witch scooted back, leaning against her elbows and pushed to keep her legs closed.

The ranger whispered. “You’re one of those vulnerable little girls. You want to scream no as I force myself upon you while your steaming little honeypot screams yes.”

“No.”

The ranger sneered. There was only so much beating around the bush she was willing to endure and the little bitch was getting on her nerves. “We’ll see which end of you is lying.”

She forced the witch’s legs open with her knees and her searching hand got under the pristine white tunic. She grasped at something before she reached the groin.

It was wet, spongy, wrinkled and large. Like a slightly too old porcini in morning dew. In the moldy must of the decaying cabin she could almost imagine herself parting low-hanging spruce branches in search of caps breaking through the duff.

Her eyes filled with shock as a stampede shook the planks of the deck. She managed to turn her head before the dead men pounced on her. The world went spinning.

As soon as her head cleared, she noticed she was kneeling on the floor at the bedside. Something applied immense pressure to her arms. Two of the skinned men were holding her arms back. It occurred to the ranger that not only was this a position of submission, it was perfect for executing a captive. A shiver ran down her spine as she raised her head to look at the witch.

She was back on the edge of the bed, sitting cross-legged. The lamplight danced in her eyes, which looked icy blue despite the warm light of the flames. Something in them reminded her intimately of the madness she had seen in other eyes on Wraeclast.

“What the hell was that disgusting thing?” The huntress tried her muscles against the sticky undead things holding her down, but she might as well have been strapped into a steel pillory. “Are you one of those man-eating freaks? Did you sneak around the keep somehow and... and...” 

The witch interrupted her with a giggle, and despite the outrage welling in the ranger’s head, fear held her tongue.

“You’re probably looking for the word infiltrate. No, you silly little thing. I boarded the same ship as you, in the same shackles, clad in the same rags, escorted by the same Templar. You must have had your head so far up your favourite jailor’s cunt you didn’t even notice.”

That could have been true. The ranger definitely had no recollection of seeing the witch on the ship, but she had admittedly tried to keep herself busy.

“What you discovered was a little souvenir I picked up from our mutual friend at the beach. You know, the giant dead fellow with a sword sticking out of his chest? The one I saved you from, and the rest of the wretches in that damp little ruin?”

The ranger stared at her in incomprehension. What the hell was that disgusting slimy thing then? Another hidden undead servant to make sure no cannibal rapes her before supper? This didn’t make any sense, which somehow made it even more frightening. This was completely outside of her sphere of experience and she was beginning to think she didn’t want to know any more of it.

The witch gasped in sudden comprehension and smirked. “Don’t tell me you’ve never touched a penis before? Well, I suppose it makes sense considering what I’ve seen so far. Here,” she spread her legs and lifted the tunic coyly, “take a good look. I call it Little Hillock.”

The huntress had seen a man or two naked, but nothing about their loins had roused any more interest in her than the rest of their coarse, angular bodies. As far as she was concerned, letting a man have his way with her was no different than letting a bear maul her with its claws and teeth. Most importantly, as powerful as they were, they both yielded to someone with superior skill and superior steel. She had always had both before she ended up here.

Suddenly pressure mounted on the ranger’s shoulders and she winced in pain as the dead arm-holders started dragging her closer to the bed. She struggled feebly and shook her head. She definitely hadn’t touched something like that before, let alone seen. A quick look in the dancing candlelight was enough for a lifetime.

It was like a pendulous, pale maggot that had attached itself between the witch’s legs, covered in veins and wrinkled folds of skin. She realized that unlike its previous owner, it definitely wasn’t rotten. Dead bits of white skin were peeling off it, but in other places it seemed ruddy, even lively.

It rested on a pair of fist-sized eggs encased in a loose pouch of wrinkled, hairless skin. They almost seemed to writhe in their prison. In fact, she was now sure the entire package pulsed like a beating heart. Then the smell of unwashed groin hit her, like rotten milk poured into old boots. She gagged, closed her eyes and tried to twist away.

The witch’s appendage slapped her on the right cheek. “How about a kiss since you’re about to become the best of friends? Ranger and Little Hillock, doesn’t that sound lovely?”

“No!” The ranger managed to gasp before the bulbous skin-covered head started rubbing her mouth. She threw up a little in her mouth but forced it back down. There was no way she was letting this thing into her mouth. The sour stench soaked into her brain as the wet head was smeared all across her lips.

This was the most sickening thing she could think of, and the humiliation of being played with like this burned on her cheeks. There was no way she was letting the freak live once she got free and her spear. She would have her revenge, cut the damn thing off and-

The glans slapped meatily against her right cheek, and as soon as it had registered in her brain, again on her left. Redness and stinging heat spread on her cheeks along the sting. It was like being hit with a whole leg of ham. She stared at the thing cross-eyed as it waved before her eyes. It was bigger than before, pulsating as it grew.

A red furrowed head peeked out from the crown of wrinkled skin, revealing more of it with each throb as it outgrew its sheath. A small glob of clear liquid squirted it’s way out of the hole on its underside and hit the huntress on the nose. Gutting a deer wasn’t half as unpleasant, except maybe if you punctured the gallbladder by accident. This thing belonged in a deep pit, covered with packed rocks and sand.

“See? It likes you”, the witch purred. A blush was starting to spread on her face. She pulled the rest of the foreskin back, exposing the crown of the glans. It was covered in large bumps, almost like barbs on an arrow, preventing its extraction from a wound.

The thing was enormous, the huntress thought, surely the witch wouldn’t insist on trying to fit this in her? Her jaw would snap. Her insides would tear and she’d bleed to death. Or maybe she’d live and have to walk bowlegged the rest of her life? She’d have to wear pants or the wind would whistle going between her legs. A nervous chuckle left her lips and she continued staring at the thing in disbelief.

She didn’t know how the witch had managed to keep this hidden. The tunic covered very little, and anyone could have seen this monster flop about even when soft. Had she noticed its existence before, she would have thought twice about forcing herself on the little woman. Hell, she probably would have been too disgusted to even consider it.

This was a tool for asserting dominance over someone, wielded by men from times ancient to reduce women to chattel slavery. She had seen the way wives ended up after being used for breeding year after year. She’d kill herself before letting that happen to her. On the other hand, this thing was from a dead man, and on a woman. Could an abomination like that even knock anyone up?

“I see you’re already thinking of having it inside of you,” the witch cooed, took a grip of the shaft and squeezed another dollop of the clear liquid on the ranger’s face. “So much for a kiss before going to business. But you’d better give it a lick or it’s going in dry. Well, you’d better really slobber on it to be honest.” She gave the ranger’s cheek a few taps.

“N-n” The head rubbed against her lips, smudging the word. The huntress tried to turn her head away, but her neck wasn’t long or flexible enough to escape it, and the rest of her wouldn’t budge. Her arms were starting to feel numb. She contemplated just biting it, but the look on the witch’s face seemed to promise that she’d live just long enough to regret it.

She closed her eyes, opened her lips and gingerly stuck out her tongue. She held her breath to keep the rancid musk out. She could do this. She had to do this, or she’d end up dead. She gingerly started running her tongue up the underside of the glans, along the flap of skin connecting it to the foreskin.

The witch let out a contented sigh. “There, it’s not so bad, now is-”

The ranger lost control and heaved, the contents of her stomach splattering on the carpeted floor of the cabin. Hot white pain flooded her head as her shoulders almost dislocated, then receded. Her arms were still in an ironclad hold, but she was allowed to curl up on the floor.

It felt like her entire respiratory tract was on fire as stomach acid gnawed at the mucosa. Then she proceeded to empty the rest of her stomach with a series of painful cramps. She laid on the floor, gasping, face swimming in a pool of her cooling vomit.

“Whuh?” Was the only thing she managed to produce as hands lifted her up, others tugging at her clothes. She struggled against her captors as they spun her around, her senseless arms prickling like stung with countless needles. The writhing only tired her out and she coughed up burning slime as she gasped for more air.

Then she was still again, though her head still insisted the world was swaying. She managed to focus her eyes on the witch who reached out to wipe some of the burning goo from her face with wadded up bedding.

“I suppose I have to admit it’s not exactly in pristine condition. Well, you’ll just have to scrub it thoroughly every day. Something like this won’t stay clean on its own.”

The witch pulled the tunic over her head and tossed it on the chest lying on the floor.

The ranger produced another unintelligible, confused vocalization. The things were manhandling her again. Then she realized that she was feeling colder. The cool night air was hitting her bare skin. She was suspended in the air by grasping, wet hands of skinned dead men. And they were hauling her carefully to the bed, stopping to maneuver around the bedposts.

This had to be some sort of a dream. Yeah, she had eaten something bad and this was a stupid nightmare. It’d be over now that she knew it was a one. She’d wake up and she’d not be in Wraeclast, these walking corpses wouldn't be holding her down and this naked, perky set of puffy nipples wouldn’t be swaying tantalizingly, approaching- Oh no, the log of throbbing meat, the very source of this nightmare- swung angrily behind the breasts of the witch as she crawled slowly across the bed. The ranger couldn’t believe that the thing that would kill her would be her first penis.

She was held on her back, knees held against the headboard, arms against shins. Her groin was defenseless, thrust out towards the approaching invader. Oh no, maybe this wasn’t a nightmare. She desperately wished it was, but she couldn’t ever recall being as awake and alert as this. Her pulse was pounding against her chest, her temple, and between her legs. Today she wasn’t the hunter. A predator was approaching, and she would be the meal.

The predator paused before her. A hand snaked to her mons, caressing its peak. “My my, aren’t we cute and fuzzy?” Then it dipped between her folds, eliciting a drawn-out groan from the ranger.

The fingers rose, covered in strands of liquid arousal. The beast’s length slid up against her vulva, their secretions intermingling as the predator reached for the prey’s head.

“Look who’s saying yes”, it cooed, rubbing fingers against each other, making wet noises.

“Nngnh”, the prey protested as the fingers entered her mouth. Her body was betraying her. She shook her head weakly with pleading eyes. Please don’t eat me, she willed her gaze to say. She wasn’t ready to die. Not like this!

The beast drew back to deliver the killing blow. The head kissed her entrance with a wet smack, both exuding searing heat. The predator’s pale blue eyes were dilated and unfocused as the two bodies drew together. The prey already felt like it split in two, yet the shaft kept tearing it further apart.

The prey let out a hoarse wail that died out as she ran out of breath. It must have gone past her diaphragm and was now squeezing the air out of her lungs. She’d die by suffocation. At least she’d die.

There were throaty, deep breaths by her ear. “It’s been a while”, a whisper said, let out a low moan and continued, “since I’ve had a dick like this.” It paused to grunt, and the prey felt some kind of liquid squirt inside of her. “Or such a lovely sheath for it.”

M-maybe it was done? It had come and now she could die in peace? She could barely breathe in short, ragged gasps. Her head swam and static danced in her eyes. Then she could feel the beast tense up, and its thrust rammed right at the entrance of her womb and something swung against her buttocks with a wet slap.

Her field of view went completely white and her ears rang. Her stomach tried to empty itself again in vain. Her toes curled up and every muscle in her body seemed to clench in unison.

When she came to, the blue eyes were staring right up at hers. The gaze seemed almost as fuzzy as her own eyes felt. Then she realized her muscles were gripping at the thing inside of her, massaging it.

“Did you just come from that, you little slut?” The voice slurred at her and the last word petered out into a deep moan.

Then it thrust again and kept pressing at the entrance of her womb. She felt something cold squirm out of the penis. Her consciousness started slipping away, and she welcomed the merciful embrace of oblivion.


	2. In which a knob is polished

Sleep released its grasp on her reluctantly. She had seen some sort of a dream, but it evaporated out of her mind as soon as she started becoming aware. A dull headache sloshed in her head, her throat was painfully dry. She coughed. Every muscle in her body felt incredibly sore and tight. She carefully checked her left arm. A huge blotch of dark purple sat on it from the cudgel blow she had received yesterday. It hurt, but it didn’t feel like any bones had broken. 

Everything was damp, the sheets clung to her naked, clammy skin. She was covered in dry sweat. Daylight was flooding in through the cabin windows, dust dancing in the shafts. She rose to a sitting position and winced. Her neck and shoulders protested as she leant on her healthy arm for support.

Oh. There was a reason they were sore. It was almost a miracle a tendon hadn’t snapped or a muscle hadn’t torn. She looked around warily, almost scared to see anyone. There was no sign of the dead, oozing bodies, animated by that bastard witch’s sorcery. She was alone.

The chest was gone. The witch’s tunic was gone. Her clothes were crumpled on the sole of the captain’s cabin. The spear and the shield were still where she had left them. She shimmied to the edge of the bed and carefully walked to her clothes. She clutched them to her chest.

The feelings had crept in unnoticed. How powerless she had felt. Vulnerable. Scared. Used. Humiliated. They were foreign and painful feelings, ones she wasn’t used to. Especially not as a combination. No one had ever forced themselves on her like that.

She felt something run down her inner thigh. She froze. It felt sticky and cool. She didn’t want to know what it was, but she did. She willed it to go away, to leave her in peace. But the amount of willful ignorance she could muster wasn’t enough to erase the sensation from her mind. Or how her insides felt. It was like someone thoroughly raked her insides.

She shivered. She clenched her teeth. Her hand crept down her stomach, to between her legs. She recoiled when her finger touched the goop, but forced herself to scoop some of it on her finger. She brought it up and forced her eyes to look at it.

An emptiness gathered in her stomach. Her throat felt tight, as if constricted. A painful feeling welled somewhere behind her eyes. Her hand trembled. Stretching between her fingers was a sticky strand of semen.

She shook. Her clothes dropped to the floor. Her hands clenched into fists, ignoring the pulsing pain in her left arm. Her whole body tensed. Tears welled in her eyes.

That bitch. That awful, deceptive bitch! The monster! The witch had somehow lured her into a false sense of security. Such a slender little beauty, so unthreatening. Magic. It had to have been some sort of magic. It was how she had been deceived, caught unawares.

There was no way she could have seen past the beautiful shell, into that rotten, inhuman core. The witch was just as depraved, just as unnatural, as the cannibals they had slain, as the dead that walked on Wraeclast. As much as the Templar. Maybe even more than the Templar, they at least had the sense to abhor corruption.

And what could be more corrupt than taking a dead man’s… thing! The image of the hefty monstrosity slapping her about intruded her mind. She could almost smell the overwhelming stench. She shook her head, willing it to disappear. That thing! Taking that thing and somehow attaching it to a woman! That kind of an organ didn’t belong on a woman. On anyone!

She felt more centered. She had a purpose. She had to kill the witch and burn the body. But she had to get rid of as much of this disgusting goop as she could without clean water. She squatted down, leaning against the bed for stability and dipped her fingers in.

She shivered and whimpered in frustration. While sore, she was also annoyingly sensitive. She tried to concentrate on how disgusting the cold, congealed slop was. One finger just sloshed it around ineffectually. Adding a second one helped, but the amount she could reach was quickly depleted.

She sighed, and added a third finger. The planks creaked. She froze.

“Well well.”

  


* * *

  


It was early morning, the first bright red glimpses of the sun had turned into a golden glow emitted by the scintillating crescent of the sun vaulting the horizon.

A blue, swirling aperture opened, pushing against its boundaries with an oscillating hum, expanding in a blink to dimensions permitting a human through. It sat in the air above the Merry Gull’s deck. The witch could see glimpses of a space beyond the portal’s vortex, distorted heavily.

She lifted the medicine chest, cursing the need for manual labor. The simpletons in Lioneye’s Watch had been rather adamant about leaving the zombies outside, and she intended to barter for useful things in exchange for the chest. She stepped through, trying to not touch the border. The jolt never felt good, not to mention the possibility of suffering rather spectacular dismemberment.

  


* * *

  


“It’s just the witch. Told you it wasn’t demons,” said a voice the witch immediately recognized as Bestel.

“Oh shut up. How about you stop right there, witch,” replied Tarkleigh, aiming a drawn bow at her from the heights of the keep’s ruins.

The witch set down the chest on the sand with a thump and wiped her hands. “Here I am with the medicine you so desperately need and you try to kill me as soon as I set a foot down?”

Tarkleigh let down the arrow with a strained breath. “Nobody else has ever opened one of those things here without warning.”

“Now I have. Now would someone carry this up? I certainly won’t.”

Bestel scampered down the stairs and hefted up the clinking chest. He carried it to Nessa, who was tending to an ailing patient by the fire. The witch could see Nessa eye her, but she decided that she would let her poach in her own juices, and talk about the reward with Tarkleigh first.

“A lot of blood was shed to obtain the medicine. I’d like a look at what you have squirreled away.”

Tarkleigh eyed her with suspicion. He scratched at the edge of the bandage covering his eye wound. “Maybe, but whose blood was it exactly? Where’s the spear lady?”

“Her? She’s alive. And a heavy sleeper. And you’ve seen what she does to the young lady. You don’t want her back here to make another mess.”

He considered the words and glanced towards the fire. “And we have just your word to take for that?”

“What else do you want? If I decide I need to kill her and do so, I won’t lie about it. I even left my pets outside, as stipulated.”

“I don’t like it, but I guess I’ll have to trust you. We’ll take a look at your pay, but there’s another matter I’d like to put forward. Another one of those survival of everyone type of things.”

She followed him to his corner of the keep.

  


* * *

  


“You’re back, witch. Without the ranger.” Nessa washed her hands with rainwater and reached into the medicine chest, considering the weather-worn labels with a frown.

“So I am. Without the ranger. No need to reach for your purse, I’ve already been paid.” The witch replied and looked at her impassively, holding a few select pieces of equipment Tarkleigh had agreed to part with. She sat down on the stretch of wall she had occupied the day before, set down her things, crossed her legs and leaned back on her hands leisurely.

Nessa set down the bottles and closed her eyes. She spent a few moments seemingly collecting herself. “What... what did you do to her?”

“Do? She’s not dead if that’s what you’re thinking of.”

The witch stared into the fire for a moment. It was probably a waste of time to try to talk sense to the young woman. The ranger was probably her last connection to the life she had had. There was no clean way to do this.

“You should forget about her. She’s not good for you.”

“And who are you to decide that for me,” Nessa growled. “You don’t know her. And you certainly don’t know me!”

The witch sighed. This would play out as she thought it would. She went through the motions lifelessly. “I’ve seen this song and dance so many times I’ve lost count. There won’t be a happy ending. You won’t change her.”

“You don’t know a thing.” Nessa rose and walked up to the witch, punctuating with her pointed index finger. “Not a thing.”

“So you’re special, and she’s special? Please.”

“I… She… You’re trying to steal her for yourself, is that it?”

The witch sighed and stared up at Nessa. This was trite in an incredibly unamusing way, even if it held a kernel of truth. A kernel that had already passed through a digestive tract.

“I knew it! We never should have let you in! You destroying everything you-”

“Oh shut up, you idiot fishwife”, the witch snapped. ”If that’s the hill you want to die on, we’ll do it that way. Yesterday your little tyrant tried to force herself on me. I wiped the floor with her. I fucked her into submission.”

Nessa stared at her open-mouthed, the accusing finger slowly drooping towards the ground.

The moment of exasperation passed. It felt good to vent a little. Not to mention this method seemed to be working splendidly. “She won’t come back to lord over your miserable little life. She’s unfit to reign over anyone. She’s my bitch now.”

“You… what?” Nessa asked in incomprehension. She fell to her knees.

There. Maybe a touch of feigned pride. She preened on a lock of hair idly. “I filled her to the brim with my seed. She’s a little sow now. Maybe I’ll have her bear a piglet or two for me.”

Anger flashed on Nessa’s face, pig-headed rejection. “No. No, that’s not possible. And she’d never-”

“Fine,” the witch interjected. No sense in letting a wounded animal suffer. She uncrossed her legs and lifted the hem of her tunic.

Nessa stared, eyes wide. Her head sunk. Dry, inaudible sobs wracked her body. Or were they gags? Not that it mattered, the point had been hammered in.

The witch gathered her things and rose, smoothing down her tunic. She began walking back to the portal, but Tarkleigh intercepted her.

“What did you do to Nessa?”

“Me? I forced her to face reality.”

“What? You mean about the ranger?”

“Yes, and she didn’t want to believe me. Now, I think, she has to. Besides, you have better things to do than pester me.”

He eyed her warily. “And what would that be?”

“She’s alone there, crying.”

He thought for a moment, nodded and stepped aside.

She walked down the stairs and plodded down the sandy decline towards the portal. That probably took care of the matter, even if she came back with her new pet later. But now she had to decide whether she wanted to help the wretches further. There might not even be another route inland, seeing how they had had the time to scour the coastline.

Oh well, first she had to tend to simpler matters. Her member tingled delightfully as she walked. She stepped through, mindful of the swirling perimeter.

  


* * *

  


“Well well,” the witch said and stepped into the cabin.

The ranger stared at her, unable to decide what to do. She hadn’t actually given thought to whether the witch had just stepped out or ran off. She thought she would have had more time in any case, to pick up the tracks or set up an ambush. But here she was, squatting in the nude, half of her hand up her cunt.

And there the witch was, looking infuriatingly smug, clad in her ridiculous oversized white tunic. There was an addition to the attire, she wore a length of iron chain around her waist, excess hanging down the flare of her hips. She also wore some sort of shoes, made out of soft fabric. She had to admit the getup was attractive, but it didn’t matter.

She had to somehow close the distance to her spear and skewer the witch before she could sic the mob of angry red corpses on her, or blast her with one of those nasty spells from yesterday. It was a difficult burst of speed to accomplish, even for her, and the witch looked damnably cocksure. She winced at the ill choice of words, that wasn’t an image she wanted in her head right now.

“Aren’t you going to explain yourself,” the witch began.

The ranger sprung like a coiled spring, bounding across the cabin for the spear. She picked up the spear, spun and imparted as much momentum into the spear as she could. It was intended as a long, smooth motion, but something twisted her stomach. Mid-throw, she locked eyes with her target. The witch’s smirk had transformed into a wide, evil smile.

The twisting feeling transformed into a sharp pain. It felt like something was twisting and squirming inside of her. She released the spear, and in a blink it closed the distance and embedded itself into the doorframe, the whole haft shuddering with a prolonged twang. She fell onto the floor, still turning from the throw.

She clutched her stomach and her face twisted into a grimace. Something was seriously wrong. The boards creaked as the witch slowly walked up to her.

The witch planted her foot on the ranger’s bruised arm. “Oh, I did forget to tell you about the little gift I gave you last night.”

The ranger couldn’t help letting out a pitiful whine. She fought against a wave of nausea, the writhing in her lower abdomen felt disgusting and the fresh pang of pain almost made her vomit.

“Wonderful, are they not? They do that if I tell them to. Have you calmed down?”

The foot lifted. The ranger snatched her arm away. The bitch was crazy. There was something inside of her, and she was convinced that it was trying to eat its way out of her. Tears crept out of her closed eyes. She nodded frantically.

“Good. I slipped something into your womb. They’re adorable little grubs, made with thaumaturgy. It’s a good thing you missed your throw. There won’t be anything keeping them dormant if I die.”

“Please make them stop,” the ranger begged, curled up on the floor. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to clutch her aching arm or her stomach with her free hand.

“Will you promise to be a good girl? Good girls don’t get themselves killed like idiots.”

“Yes. Please! Anything!”

The writhing stopped abruptly. The abdominal pain lingered but it started subsiding into a dull ache. The ranger froze. She was afraid that it would start again if she so much as twitched.

“Now what do you say after you’re given something?”

The ranger opened her eyes. She dared to take a few ragged breaths. Her vision was blurry from the tears. She looked up at the towering witch, afraid that she’d get trampled on again, or something worse.

“T-Thank you?”

“Good girl.”

The ranger closed her eyes again. She concentrated on breathing. Her head rang and she almost felt like she was suffocating. This was beyond humiliating, but she had very little fight left in her after this and the night before.

After a while, the witch broke the silence. “I dragged the chest back while you snored.”

The ranger opened her eyes. She stared at the witch. She felt slightly better already, and defiance was creeping back into her eyes. There was no way the waif had carried it all the way back alone, and even with the dead men it would have taken hours to go there and back. And the bitch didn’t look like she had lost any sleep.

“They were very grateful. But I had to tell your little girlfriend you’re breaking up for good.”

“You did.” The ranger stopped to swallow, her throat painfully dry. “You did what?”

The witch smiled. “I’m calling the shots now. You don’t get to sink your teeth in the young lady again.”

The ranger bit down her anger. “You’re not untouchable. There will be an opening, and I’ll take it.”

“Maybe there will be. But until then, you’ll do what I say or die. Speaking of which.” The witch somehow produced the familiar crimson-filled flask from somewhere on her belt and offered it down. “Drink up. I want you in usable shape.”

The ranger stared at the glass container. The red liquid captured in its volume seemed to swirl on its own turbulently. This was the same stuff that she had been given before, and it hadn’t killed her then. She snatched it out of the outstretched hand, uncorked the vial and brought it to her lips.

It felt like her body felt through the motions of being injured and bruised, only in reverse, congealed into a lump of bizarre sensations. She could almost hear her body snap and pop. She stopped drinking and almost dropped the vial as she let out a strained gasp. She watched the congealed blood in her bruised arm lighten and then flow backwards towards the impact point with a perverse fascination.

She felt vital again. Full of piss and vinegar. She clambered up to her feet, pressing the stopper back in with her thumb, and wiped off her mouth. She hadn’t really taken note of it before, but the witch was slightly taller than her. Somehow she felt even more naked than she was. She stared up at the witch’s icy-cold orbs.

“I won’t bend. I won’t break. You’re a monster and all monsters die.”

The witch smiled, but there was something hard to read in her eyes. “Maybe. I suppose I should be thankful. This wouldn’t be any fun if you just rolled over.”

“I’m not your plaything, nor your dog.”

“What are you then? If I told you to bend over and take it, do you think you could refuse?”

The ranger frowned. She was fresh again. Maybe she could try something. But even if she managed to overpower the witch, there was a chance she wasn’t lying about the grubs eating her alive. She felt sick. Her hand had crept up to her belly. She moved it away, hoping the witch hadn’t noticed.

The witch leaned in to peer into her eyes, snapping her out of her thoughts. She took a step back but maintained eye contact.

The witch took a matching step forward. “I do think I mentioned one of your new duties last night.”

The ranger blinked. A vague recollection resolved into an unwelcome memory. “You can’t be serious.” She couldn’t help gazing down. The thing was swelling against the sheer fabric and was starting to tent. She tore her eyes back up.

“Oh but I am. There’s a bucket outside with rainwater. That should make it easier for you since you’re a beginner.”

The ranger shot a look at her crumpled pile of clothes. The witch noticed, smirked and turned to step out of the cabin.

“You won’t need them for a while. Come.”

The ranger stopped before the doorway. Maybe she could run. The witch had commanded the things she now carried inside without gesturing. Could she do it without line of sight? From afar? How much could she risk trying the length of her lead? There was no way she could gather her things now and slip away unnoticed.

“Well? Did you suddenly get shy? There’s no one else out there.”

She took a deep breath and stepped out. The pressure of daylight hit her, the brightness stung her eyes. The warmth felt good on her skin, but the strong sea wind certainly highlighted that she wasn’t wearing anything. Her nipples stood at rapt attention, almost painfully so.

The witch stood by a barrel filled with rainwater and beckoned at her. She followed reluctantly.

“You complained about the smell, so I’m giving you an opportunity to make it more bearable for yourself. I can’t have you going around saying I’m entirely unreasonable.” The witch smirked and hitched up the tunic so that the hem stopped just above her mons.

Despite having seen the monstrous limb up close previously, the candle light hadn’t done it proper justice. It stood half-erect, still fully covered in wrinkled skin, shuddering with the witch’s pulse, swelling larger and larger with each beat. It hadn’t lost any of its intimidating quality. It looked completely out of place on the svelte form of the witch’s body, massive and jutting in contrast to the smooth, delicate curvature.

It was an ugly thing, and the ranger would never have had anything to do with it if she had any choice. But she hadn’t, and she didn’t. She couldn’t figure out why someone like the witch would want to have one, let alone pick one up on the beach from a half-decomposed giant.

“Why do you even have this thing?”

“Why? They’re good fun all around. You’ve never had one?”

The ranger frowned at the witch. It felt like she was being set up as the butt of a joke.

“Of course you haven’t. These things rarely grow on trees. It was common among my sisters, before the purges. Might have been one of the reasons the Templar got interested. They can’t stand being emasculated.”

“A fitting end for you deranged perverts.”

The witch chuckled. “Don’t knock it before you’ve tried it.”

“I’d rather die.”

The witch answered with one of those infuriating ever-present smirks. It all but said that the witch didn’t think she would. She would! But she’d rather live as long as nobody tried to slap one of those on her.

It was difficult to focus on the conversation. The monster still hadn’t seemed to reach its zenith. Whenever the witch moved, the thing swung lazily like a bizarre tail. Every now and then it almost seemed to jump, as if flexed by some sort of muscles she wasn’t sure the witch even should have possessed. She needed something else to think about.

“Why does it even work? It can’t have been very fresh.”

“Thaumaturgy, you silly little girl.”

As if that actually explained something. Besides, the witch didn’t look a day older than twenty. This belittling was starting to really grate. “Stop calling me a girl.”

“And why would I?”

“There’s no way you’re the elder of us.”

“Is there? What basis do you have for such an assumption? How I look?”

She felt flustered. The witch was making fun of her again, and she had no idea what the catch was here. “Yes?”

“And it didn’t occur to you, girl, that someone who can graft a phallus onto herself can look like whatever she fancies?”

The ranger blushed. She certainly had no idea how thaumaturgy worked, or what kind of limitations it had. She almost wished she did, but such secrets always came with a price. What would you have to give for the power to mold the human body according to your will? Knowledge of such things would help her find a way to bring the witch down, but would she be sane after that? Or herself at all?

“I see you’ve run out of silly questions for now. Go on, girl, spit and polish. Or water and polish for now.”

“Can I have a drink first? I don’t want to end up coughing stomach acid.”

“Get on with it.”

The ranger crouched and dipped her head in the barrel, drinking with heavy gulps. It felt like a blessing despite its staleness. She quickly splashed some on herself and tried to wash off some of the night’s stains.

She yelped when the hot log of flesh thudded at her hand.

“A drink, not a bath.”

She bit her teeth. She could feel it radiate heat against her cheek. She still wanted nothing to do with the ugly thing. The wrinkled, vein-riddled skin seemed even less appetizing out in the sun. A bit of its head peeked out from under the foreskin, and she could see the opening of the pisshole on the underside of its tip.

It smelled sour, with an undertone of rank butter. There was something else that was off, probably a hint of the corpse stench of its previous owner. Oh. Wonderful. That and stale urine.

Wait, did the witch even have a pussy anymore? If she did, how the hell did the plumbing even work? Does it come out of both pissholes at the same time? She couldn’t help snickering at the thought. She had barely noticed the penis had started moving as the wet head thudded on her cheek with a muted smack.

“What are you, a toddler? Get your hands wet or you’re using nothing but your tongue.”

The ranger stared at the witch. Now she’s a toddler? She had to restrain herself. Getting angry had gotten her nowhere. And the longer she stalled, the worse the witch humiliated her.

She reached out gingerly and placed her hand on the thing, somewhere around the middle, avoiding the swell of the head. That was the part she wanted to deal with the least. It was clammy and hot, still slightly squishy. She realized she could feel it beat with the witch’s pulse. The thing must have been full of blood. How hadn’t the witch passed out?

She cupped water from the barrel with her other hand, splashed it on the top and started stroking the top, trying to peel off whatever layer of crud it had accumulated.

The witch purred contently. “See, it won’t bite.”

The ranger stared at the penis as she stroked at the shaft, not wanting to meet the witch’s eyes. It wasn’t growing much anymore, but it became stiffer with each touch, standing slightly higher. Whenever her hand came off at the end of a stroke, the thing swung like a branch.

The witch was right, it wasn’t as scary after having handled it for a while. It was a colossal slab of meat, nothing more. In some way she felt like a cat playing with a feather. The way it moved, jumped and bounced was somehow mesmerizing.

“Hey, don’t spend the entire day on the shaft, it’s not getting any cleaner without soap.”

She froze, her hand wrapped around the hilt. That would mean… she didn’t even want to think.

“If you don’t know what to do, ask, you stupid girl. Grab on the skin behind the crown and pull it back.”

She really, really didn’t want to. That was the most disgusting part. But there was no way about it. She took a deep breath and held it. She placed her fingers around the narrower part behind the head. The skin really did seem to be looser there, not attached to the rest of the bulk. She tried not to whimper as she started pulling on the skin.

The foreskin started retracting. She could see it adhere to the tip of the head, peeling back reluctantly. She could actually hear it make a wet sound as it did. A shiver ran down her spine. The stench became stronger gradually, and the exposed glans radiated even more heat than the foreskin had.

After what had felt like minutes, the tip of the skin slipped past the crown of the glans. How was there so much of it? The thing was enormous, but the foreskin seemed like it could cover another monster of the same size. She didn’t dare breathe. Her pulse pounded at her head and she heard the blood swish in her ears. She dipped her hands in the water and gripped at the glans.

The witch growled and slapped at her wrist. “Gentle with it.”

So it was more sensitive? She had no idea. It might be worth noting. But her body was starting to pester her for more air. She tried to use less pressure, reaching for more water between strokes. The witch was audibly pleased, the ranger’s touches evoked soft gasps and throaty mewls. 

There clearly was some sort of disgusting gunk that had accumulated under the foreskin. Dried semen? Dead skin? Something even more awful?

Fighting between concentrating on the job, not thinking about what she was doing and holding her breath became too much. She lost control and exhaled. The stench hit her nose with the first drag of air. As rank as it was, it wasn’t quite as awful as she had anticipated. She tried to avoid breathing through her nose and tried to pace her breathing even though her body still screamed for more air.

She had cleaned most of the head, even on the underside where some sort of a flap of skin ran from the tip to the retracted foreskin. That had seemed to especially please the witch for some unfathomable reason. But she still had to clean the canal running between the bumpy crown and the retracted skin.

Something about the texture felt especially revolting as she traced the path with a finger. The hardness of the crown and the grainy texture of the bumps on its ridge combined with the yielding fleshiness of the skin and the slimy wetness that had accumulated there made her shudder. The witch sounded very distracted.

The ranger risked looking up. The bitch had her eyes closed. That was the expression of a very pleased woman. Something like that didn’t sit right with the ranger. She was used to such faces. They were an inevitable result of her plying her craft on a woman. She wasn’t at home at all with working this monstrosity, but the witch seemed to have no complaints. She felt cheated. None of this was right.

The witch drew in air and hummed pleasedly. “That’s enough cleaning.”

The ranger released her hands immediately, pleased that it was over.

“You’re done yet, girl. I want to come.”

Oh no. That was exactly what she hadn’t wanted to hear. No amount of vile sorcery is going to knit her together if that thing kept gouging at her insides. A hint of panic snuck in, her throat started feeling tight.

“Oh calm down. I enjoyed your hands. I want to fuck them.”

Fuck her hands? Relief washed over her. Wait, how would that even work? Surely she couldn’t mean working some sort of a hole into her hand by magic and ravaging that? Oh. She could probably reach her fingers around the circumference, forming a ring. That wasn’t so bad.

She realized something was held next to her face. It was the empty silver-embroidered flask she looted from the frozen man. When had the witch even picked that up?

“I will tell you when I’m close. I assume you saw where the urethra is. The slit on the underside.”

The ranger nodded, not quite certain why this was important.

“You will hold the flask’s mouth on that when I come.”

Why would she want to come in that? That would only make the vial useless. They’d probably have to throw it away. But she wasn’t about to start arguing, the witch would probably change her mind about not wrecking her holes.

The witch directed her to sit on the sole, her back against the railing for support. The ranger set down the flask next to her and held up her hands, touching her fingers together into a warped circle. The witch sashayed up to her. The blue eyes looked especially cold now, like the gaze of a predator that hadn’t eaten in a week. With great reluctance, the ranger felt grateful. This could have been a lot worse.

“No, start by taking a hold behind the crown again. I want to grind against my foreskin so you need to hold it in place.”

The ranger adjusted her hands, taking hold of the penis again. The foreskin had slipped back on on its own, but not quite far enough to cover the whole head again. A bead of glimmering moisture had gathered on the tip. It reached some sort of a weight threshold and tipped off the tip of the foreskin, running down in a goopy, elongated strand.

“Good girl. You know what to do,” the witch stated and started working her hips with a pleasured groan.

It was weird, having to hold her arms up and resist the force of the fuckrod sawing against her fingers and palms. It made obscene noise, squelching wetly. The sweaty, swollen ballsack smacked against the thighs as it swung. As the witch drew her hips back, the head disappeared into the foreskin with a slurp, only to reappear and lunge towards her before the tension of the stretched skin of the glans compelled the woman to stop. Occasionally drops of clear fluid flew off, propelled by the motion and landed on the ranger’s exposed torso.

The pace picked up. The witch grunted with each thrust, but the mounting pleasure seemed to gradually twist them into husky moans. The ranger felt increasingly uncomfortable. She felt disconnected. The witch was basking in pleasure, while she had none. All she did was provide a sorry copy of a hole for the witch to fuck. She wasn’t involved. Just a piece of the scenery.

“I’m close,” the witch said between her teeth.

The ranger was confused. How would she keep stimulating the dick if she had only one free hand?

The witch slapped the ranger’s hands away, and gripped the shaft with both of her hands. “Quick.”

She grabbed the flask. She risked a peek at the witch. Her eyes were closed, the face contorted in intense concentration. The ranger brought the flared mouth of the flask to the tip of the penis. The witch let out a surprised whine. The ranger realized it must have felt cold.

The witch started pumping at her shaft feveredly. The heavy sack slapped against her thighs. The ranger noticed that something was happening to the testicles. They started rising, as if trying to retract into the body. The witch’s vocalizations had blurred together into a prolonged, throaty groan.

The ranger had tried to steel herself, but the penis jolted and the first violent spurt of pearly goop hit the side of the flask. She cursed and adjusted the position, trying to not let the subsequent squirts of semen escape the glass mouth. The contractions kept coming and coming even as the volume decreased each with each pump.

The witch’s strokes had slowed down, she was panting, mewling each time a drop squeezed out of the urethra. She worked the length from hilt to tip, milking the shaft with tight squeezes.

The last drips were hard to capture, but the ranger managed to not spill any. She sighed in relief, the witch would probably have come up with some devious new way to punish her. But now it was over, wasn’t it?

The witch certainly seemed content, basking in the afterglow of the ejaculation. Her hands were gripped under the crown of the glans, squeezing and massaging. The thing had already lost some of its volume. Surely this had to be over now.

The ranger set down the flask carefully, reapplying the stopper. She just sat there, unsure what to do.

“Good girl,” the witch groaned.

Another shiver ran down her spine. She hated being called a good girl. Having to please this monstrous cock was wrong and being praised for it felt even worse.

“You still have cleanup duty.”

The ranger suppressed a curse. She looked up at the witch, simmering with anger. The witch pulled on the foreskin, exposing the semen-soaked glans. How had that goop even got there? She frowned. She didn’t want to touch it, but this had to be the last thing before the monster would disappear into its unexplained hiding hole.

She cupped more water and tried to wash off the tightly-clinging slop. The witch groaned, as if in the throes of both immense pleasure and pain. The ranger hoped that her strokes on the steadily softening spongy glans didn’t rouse it for another round. Most of the big globs were easy to remove, but a film of spunk clung insistently to places, resistant to even scrubbing.

“Enough,” breathed the witch. She seemed weary. She took unsteady steps and sat on the railing.

The witch didn’t say a thing for a long while. The ranger sat on the sole of the deck, simmering in her gloom. She was naked, hungry and cranky. Something about the whole act irked her immensely. She realized her butt had fallen asleep and adjusted her position. That was when she realized how wet she had become. Her thighs squished with moisture. She tried to stay very quiet and still, despite the painful tingles running down her left leg as blood flow resumed.

She reached a point where she couldn’t just swallow her discontent. She had to do something. Say something. The quietness felt oppressive.

“Why did you ruin the flask? I just found it up too.”

The witch opened her eyes and turned her head down to the ranger. “Ruined?”

“Yeah, ruined. It can’t be filled with whatever that is that goes in them. It’s full of disgusting spunk now.”

“Ah. You don’t know what that is. It’s the stolen lifeforce of the enemies we slay.”

“Oh. But it’s contaminated now. Might as well chuck it overboard.”

The witch sighed. “No. No, it’s not ruined. Blood is but one form of lifeforce. There are other potent things in the human body usable to thaumaturgy.”

The ranger wasn’t sure whether she wanted to pursue this any further. If she knew anything about the witch, it would have to be something foul. But she couldn’t stand the silence.

“Like what?”

“Semen.”

A lump rose into the ranger’s throat. She should have just kept her stupid mouth shut.

“You’re going to put that thing to good use. I’ll even give you a treat once you finish it.”

The ranger closed her arms around her knees, pressing them into her chest. She desperately fought the urge to grab the flask and throw it against the cliff face as hard as she could. She squeezed so hard her knuckles turned white. She wished she could just wake up, but she couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried.


	3. In which there is gratuituous drinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No sex here, only kink.

They walked up the thin bridge of land that connected the tidal island to the shore during low tide. Something was bothering the ranger. Her shield hand had snuck down to the glass vessel hanging from her hip on a piece of cord. She had to keep telling herself it would only make things worse if she “accidentally” dropped it on the way or drained it. The witch had been emphatic that she wouldn’t be able to walk for a week if anything happened to the flask.

Still, the temptation was there. Its contents would only get more disgusting as time went on. Would the witch still insist on her drinking it after it went bad? And how long would that even take? Could she afford to not use it in combat? The witch had insisted it would work exactly as it did before.

She didn’t want to die and she couldn’t run away, but there was no way she would submit to being the witch’s fucktoy. She at least had to find a way to avoid that. But she couldn’t think of anything, bar divine intervention. And there were very few signs of her being in the favor of any god.

She hated feeling this confused and clueless. Questions kept raising their ugly heads and she had found that she could answer very few of them. Life had been straightforward before she met the witch. This uncertainty was unsettling. You either ate, fucked or killed things. Or if none were possible, you avoided them, like the Templar. The witch eluded all of those categories.

She growled in frustration and kicked at a half-embedded shell. It flew and clattered against the rocks. Standing next to them were darkened, weatherworn hunks of wood. Full of carvings.

“Wait, were these pillars here when we came here?” She thumped the flat of her speartip against it. 

The witch stopped. “Those? Yes they were.”

“Really? Why are they here?”

“You must have been too busy raving about yourself. Karui, by the looks.”

She frowned at the blatant insult, but it wasn’t worth fighting over. “Karui? I didn’t know they lived here.”

The witch sighed. “They came here as conquerors two hundred years ago. That little hovel by the shore, Lioneye’s Watch? That’s where the Eternals stood and died.”

“But there’s no Karui here anymore?”

“Did you really grow up alone in the woods? They died in the Cataclysm, like everyone else.”

The ranger felt her ears glow in embarrassment. The bitch just had to poke fun at her. But she wasn’t entirely clueless. “But there’s Karui in Oriath, as slaves.”

The witch looked at her with an unreadable expression. “They weren’t all stupid enough to try to conquer Wraeclast. But it didn’t help them against the Oriathans.”

Everything she heard about the place made it sound more fucked up. But at least it was clear nobody stayed on the top of the dung heap forever. Her time would yet come.

  


* * *

  


Fuck these things! She rolled on the wet, muddy sand as the big, spiny featherless bird-like thing thundered past her. They had gone absolutely nuts after she had stumbled upon a ragged pile of sticks. A shiny, beautifully formed sea shell had laid on top of it. How was she supposed to have known it was the dumb, ugly things’ nest? It didn’t even have any eggs in it.

The mod-clogged shamblers that had risen from the mud flats to attack them were easy to kill, but they were poor material for the witch’s servants. They were slow, decidedly less strong and durable. The cycle-charging birds buffeted them about like they weren’t even there. One of them had already stopped moving.

The beak of a charging rhoa struck her shield with a bang. She managed to twist away to not fall from the impact, but her arm felt numb. She couldn’t keep dodging forever. Desperation was starting to mount. The flask was there. She’d just have to bear one quick swig and she could keep up.

The ranger couldn’t help shuddering. She knew how nasty the texture would be. It would be a clumpy goo, almost chewable, that would cling to every surface of her mouth. How many hours would she be able to smell it? The witch had a waterskin, but she wouldn’t be given any to wash the smell off. The witch wanted her to bathe in the nasty ballslop.

She dodged again, scoring a small gash in the side of a passing rhoa before the big spines deflected the cut. There was no choice. She pulled the stopper and slipped the rope off her belt. She didn’t want to find out how it tasted like after hours of sloshing in a flask in the sun. But she had to. The sun-warmed glass touched her lips. She grimaced as the goo touched her lips and ran down to her tongue.

What the hell? It was salty. Smooth. Almost sweet. She had expected some sort of a fungal rottenness. Or the sour of fermentation. This had to be some sort of trickery, you could think it was fresh, not that she actually knew. She still had some saliva left and the first mouthful went down smoothly.

She was almost surprised when the world around her started slowing down. She had expected this to have been just an excuse to get her to guzzle the witch’s spunk. Well, it still obviously was, but the flask had actually worked! She jumped and twisted in the air, landing on the mud. Her spear swung up, finding purchase in the soft underbelly of the rhoa.

Foul-smelling bird blood spurted on the ground. But it definitely had a salty, funky undertone that had nothing to do with the sea air. The ranger cursed as another rhoa tore through where she had just crouched. She’d probably have to take another sip soon.

  


* * *

  


Oh no. She had to burp again. The salty, slightly ammoniac stench that had insistently clung to her sinuses became stronger once again. She had gone through most of the flask in the span of a few hours. This must have been the personal hell of every whore in Theopolis’s dockside brothels each time a new ship arrived. The witch kept smirking at her every time she had to uncork the flask in combat. The bitch mostly hid behind her muddy zombies, so she had ample time to bask in her degradation.

The mud sucked at her tattered boots. Thumb-sized black flies covered fresh rhoa corpses in thick mats in a matter of minutes. The whole place smelled like farts, composting leaves and salt. She hadn’t eaten anything besides spunk today. Even the foul-smelling rhoa had started seeming appetizing, at least if she could char them black on a fire first to make sure it’s marginally safe.

“Why are we even trudging through all this mud, you swamp hag?”

“Swamp hag?” The witch chortled. “You’re certainly trying hard. We’re here because I say so. You follow along and do as I say.”

“So you’re going to keep me like a mushroom? In the dark and up to the neck in shit? You’re so rotten even the flies leave you alone.”

“No, that’s a protective charm. If you behave I might consider making you a one. Besides, I’m soaking you in my semen, not my shit. I thought you would have noticed by now.”

The ranger growled. The witch could dance circles around her, and she had to be so damnably smug about it too. Every time she made the mistake of opening her mouth, she felt every bit as stupid and ignorant as the witch seemed to think she was. The humiliation had twisted her guts all day.

  


* * *

  


They approached a water-eaten gorge at the cliffside. Stagnant-looking water drifted out sluggishly on the sand. The smell drifting out of it put the mud flats to shame. Something foul dwelled there, and the insane old bat was dragging her there, probably to rape her, drown her in a stagnant pool and rape the corpse again.

“I’m not going there if you don’t tell me why first.”

“Really? Are you sure?” The witch smirked at her again, clearly thinking she was going to cave.

“No. I doubt even you would want to make camp there, so it’s definitely to kill something that does. I need to know what to be wary of.”

“Well well, that’s awfully responsible of you. Good girl.”

She could see herself throwing the spear. It would sink right into the witch’s throat, whatever sorcery she was cooking in response drowned in her own blood. Those old, cold eyes would stare vengeance at her, but grow dull in the insistent embrace of death. After that she could just pull the spear out, snap the haft and fall on her spear before the grubs ate her alive. A proper death.

But she couldn’t. She lived, and she was a coward for it. But even if it was likely she’d never be free again, the chance was there. She wouldn’t follow the witch meekly. Her eyes threw daggers at the witch.

“Well?”

“There’s a necromancer dwelling here. I want his life. And his knickknacks.”

“So you’re jealous?” The ranger took the chance to smirk back at the witch.

“Please. I’m down on my luck, but I wouldn’t stoop that low. Just look out for the undead and kill the bastard if you see him.”

“Him? How do you know it’s him?”

The witch frowned at her, but the corners of her mouth pulled into a wry smile. “You’re not half as dumb as you think you are. I did receive a tip earlier.”

“So I’m not useless! How about you try treating me decently for once? I’m not going to be any use to anyone if you lock me in the basement every time you go to town. I’d appreciate not having to sleep in the cold with one eye open every now and then!”

“You’re just smart enough to cause trouble wherever you go. I might consider it if you suddenly grew manners. That’s one of the things good girls learn. Bad girls embarrass their parents, so they’re kept indoors.”

The ranger stared at the witch. “You’re not… I’m not your...”

“Oh shush. We better get going. You’ve made so much noise we’re expected.”

  


* * *

  


She shanked the necromancer’s corpse a few times for good measure. Charging rhoa were dangerous, but they could be bled to death with some care and patience. Rhoa skeletons barreling through the cramped confines of the fetid root-and-rock-covered pool? Never again.

Her flask had nothing but dregs left now, and the thought of the witch filling it again made her shudder. It definitely hadn’t filled with blood or whatever the witch had said made the regular flasks work. This one had been stained. Probably permanently.

“Let it be, he’s definitely dead. You might break something usable.”

She huffed at the witch and pulled the blade free with a wet slurp and crackle of tendon and cartilage.

The witch rifled through the things the tall, spindly mask-wearing thing covered in robes had worn. There seemed to be some items of interest, foul, small, shiny things, which the witch quickly palmed and stowed. The ranger leaned on her spear, openly disdainful.

The witch looked up at her. “Come now, like you can afford to not rob the dead. There’s things in here for you too, but I think you won’t agree to use these before they’re washed. Maybe buried in hot ashes for a while.”

Ashes? That’d mean a campfire. But surely not here? Maybe even Lioneye’s Watch? The ranger quickly caught herself. There was no reason to be hopeful. This was the witch. Whatever the crone decided would be against her will and best interests.

“Don’t be like that. You’ve been a rather good girl, all things considered. You more or less emptied the flask. You killed all the things I’ve told you to. The sass has been tolerable. I think you’re due a reward once we’re out of this shithole.”

A reward. It couldn’t be anything good.

Suddenly the corpse twitched. It started tearing off its clothes. Then shedding its skin. The ranger felt a glob of half-digested come rise up her throat, but forced it back down. It never got any easier seeing the birth of one of the flayed men.

“What? I needed a fresh one. You’ve seen how the recycled ones perform.”

  


* * *

  


Could she just walk away? Maybe the grubs didn’t work like the witch said they did. Maybe the hag would just leave her alone. Maybe she could, now that they had split up. The witch had said she’d somehow secure them a place for the night. So she had been commanded to procure a dead rhoa, sans the flies. It wasn’t even all that late, but if they had to roast a rhoa, it would take some time.

The witch had given her the bauble that protected one from them. It’d be satisfying to take it with her and leave the witch alone in some dank hole of a cave, covered in the black bulbous insects. But protection from insects and other creepy-crawly creatures wouldn’t help her if she got eaten alive. And whatever the grubs left uneaten, larger animals would finish.

Something writhed in her stomach. Panic crept into her mind. Oh god, the witch somehow knew what she had thought. She’d die, here and now. But the sensation stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Her fingers felt cold. She felt nauseous. But she wasn’t dying. But what the hell had that been?

She breathed carefully. Her body calmed down. The rhoa was still just standing there. She had no idea how these beasts worked. How did they even survive? It had spent a dozen minutes just staring off into the distance, not moving at all. Would it run away if it saw her? Or attack? 

She wasn’t sure if she could risk throwing her spear. If it missed, she’d have to recover it before she could defend herself. Running away without it would be even worse, she would be completely helpless and at the mercy of the witch. She had to remain armed, but she also had to kill that wretched thing. A bow and an arrow would make this so much easier. But here she was.

She stalked as close as she could, approaching from downwind. She inched up very slowly to a throwing stance. It wasn’t that many paces and she could barely feel the breeze. She drew back. Her muscles flexed from the feet up in a cascade of twisting movement. The spear accelerated and her fingers relinquished their grip on the haft.

It was flying beautifully, the haft wobbling behind the spearhead. The damn thing had no idea what was coming. The tip sunk into the soft meat of the throat. The spear kept on going through and it hit the mud with a splunk. The creature tottered, the clawed feet trying to compensate for the impact. It tried to make some sort of a sound, but the haft was still embedded in its throat. 

There was blood. A lot of blood. It was pouring out of the neck wound. The rhoa opened its mouth, and blood ran down its jaw. It tried to step back, to wrench its head free from whatever was holding it in place. It did it no good, the spear was anchored in the mud. The blood just kept pumping out in dark red streaks.

The struggling became uncoordinated, sluggish. Then the beast sagged to the ground, the head still resting against the spear. It was dead. And nothing had noticed it dying. Yes! She crept carefully to the kill. The thing was surprisingly big. It’d be an effort to drag it back. But she could do some of the work here to ease the load.

She wrenched the spear out of the sucking mud with strained effort. She took off the tip to use as a dagger, leaving the haft in the wound. She cleaned the blade as well as she could in a puddle and turned the thing over. She cut open the stomach and cut out the innards. They were incredibly foul, even worse than the blood, but she managed to not puncture any organs. She didn’t want to think what they’d do to the meat.

It was weird. The animal looked like it had been properly hung to drain the blood out, not like a messy wilderness kill at all. Then again, the stone embedded in the speartip did cause some sort of unnatural bleeding. Maybe it was so potent it could draw out more blood than what the body itself could pump out. Convenient. Convenient and utterly terrifying. She’d have to make sure she’d never ever cut herself with it.

Gutted, the beast was easier to haul. She slid it almost off the haft, propped the haft on her shoulder and dragged the thing behind her like a bizarre travois. It was sweaty work, and she had to keep her eyes open for any stragglers. This could turn into a half-decent meal yet.

  


* * *

  


The witch had found another crevice in the cliffside, smaller than the dismal pool from earlier. There were some sort of fetishes placed around the entrance. To be honest they looked like randomly scattered things, but some of the things incorporated bones, even some sort of small freshly killed animals dissected creatively. She felt shivers run down her spine. She tore her eyes off them and trundled into the recess.

The witch was sitting on a gnarled grey log, which by the marks on the somewhat drier sand of the enclosure had been dragged there.. The one proper zombie shuffled listlessly behind her. It must have done all the actual work. She must have relinquished the awful mud-clogged ones. A campfire crackled and snapped in the middle, but she hadn’t seen any of the smoke outside. It seemed that the witch had actually spent some effort.

The witch eyed her and her kill. “I see you’ve returned triumphant. Good girl.”

She thumped the carcass on the sand and slid the haft out of the throat wound. “Here’s your damn rhoa dinner.”

“That? Surely you can’t expect me to eat it raw? You can’t imagine what sort of parasites these things might be carrying.”

She had to concede that point. There was no way anything on Wraeclast was completely safe to eat without precautions. “Well, I killed it, so you better cook it. We have no proper equipment for a spit roast, and no, I’m not sacrificing my spear for that. You’ve got magic, so you figure something out.”

“There’s the sass again. But you did do a good job. Clean up your spear properly and butcher that thing into manageable pieces. I think one of my parlour tricks might get them safe and cooked without scorching them black on the fire.”

“Fine.” The ranger tossed her shoulders.

The witch definitely couldn’t do a better job of it than her, and her growling stomach was eager for something proper to eat. She wiped the speartip with sand and settled it down in the glowing coals. The air around the gem embedded in the blade glowed with an eerie color she couldn’t identify. It was a beautiful piece, but something about it went squarely against what she felt was right. But it was the only thing that kept her from being completely powerless.

  


* * *

  


She burped, unabashed. Even without salt and slightly overcooked, the rhoa had become surprisingly tasty. The thoroughly drained blood might have had something to do with it. The witch had somehow redirected the heat of the fire into the meat, cooking it more evenly than what was possible normally.

The whole animal was more than they could finish even if they gorged themselves full, so they had cut some of it into thin strips to completely dry next to the fire. Gnawing on it might sustain them for a while.

She wasn’t happy though. They had spoken little during cooking. It was clear to her, and probably to the witch too, that she’d have to undergo more abuse after they had settled down. She hoped it would be just a refill of the flask. As bizarre as it sounded, just having to use her hands on the colossal slab of abnormal meat didn’t sound so bad compared to the alternatives.

She didn’t like the fact that the witch had her cut off a piece of the rhoa’s skin and set it upside down on some of the cooler coals to render some of the fat. It had sat there, bubbling and crackling. The witch had something nasty in mind, and she didn’t even want to think about what it was.

Damn.

The witch reached out to the piece of skin with two branches, careful to not spill any of the rendered fat. She laid it on the sand next to the log to cool down.

The ranger’s face felt hot, and it wasn’t just the campfire. Her cheeks burned. The urge to just run was strong, her toes ached. The silence was unbearable. The witch just stared into the fire, waiting. The sun was setting and it was getting darker in the shadowed crevice. The flames danced on the witch’s face. It wasn’t just getting dark, the whole mood was foreboding and growing dimmer by the second. She had to do something. Defend herself.

“I won’t.”

The witch uncrossed her legs and turned her head to the ranger. “You won’t what?”

“Whatever obscene thing that fat is for, I won’t have anything to do with it.”

The witch smirked. Damn, she had said something stupid again.

“You won’t?”

“No.”

“So you like it dry?”

“Dry? W-what are you talking about?” Her throat felt constricted.

“In your ass.”

She was on her feet before she knew it, dashing madly to escape. She hadn’t even had the sense to grab her spear. Her teeth clacked together as she slammed against the sand.

“No! You can’t! Please no!”

The bloody, skinless zombie held her down, smearing her in half-congealed blood and meat juice. The witch walked up to her, her face concealed by the shadows cast by the fire.

“I’ll die! You can’t, you’ll kill me! Not like this, please!”

The witch pressed fingers on her lips. The cold, depthless eyes peered into her.

“Haven’t you learned to trust me at all? You stupid little thing.”

She shook her head. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

The witch sighed. “I’m not going to fuck your ass dry.”

The ranger stopped, relief washing over her. But she was still going to fuck her ass. She was still going to die. She tried pleading with her eyes. She was too scared to speak.

“No, I’m not going to fuck your ass today. I am trying to be nice. Considerate even. I know you can’t take me in your ass. Yet.”

The ranger blubbered incoherently.

“You’re a real mess. Dominus, bring her.”

The ranger squealed as the hands holding her started dragging her back to the fireside. Her mind felt like it was squeezed, pressed into a tiny point. The squeezing went on until her consciousness disappeared completely.

The witch sat on the sand against the log and the zombie set the sniffling, snot-dripping ranger down in her lap.

  


* * *

  


The nightmare faded away. She felt warm and comfortable. She was nuzzling something soft and a hand was caressing her hair. All was well. She wished it would never stop. She had felt so drawn out. She needed the rest.

“Are you feeling better?” The voice asked.

She nodded, breathing in the scent of the soft lap. She could smell the campfire too. It was a familiar, comfortable smell. The wood crackled and popped. She could smell the dinner. She was still delightfully full. Content.

She could lay like this forever. Except for one thing. Heat pulsed in her loin, it dwarfed the warmth of the campfire. She was horny. She felt like she hadn’t gotten off in days. Her hand snaked down her belly as she drew another breath of the girl’s scent.

She giggled into the lap as her fingers went through the fuzz of her mons and found her soaked slit. She groaned as she felt her lips. She was so damn sensitive. The intimacy was nice, but she had a growing hunger for another kind of comfort.

She grinned and opened her eyes, looking hungrily at the girl. Icy-cold blue eyes stared down into her. Her hand shot out of her pants. She couldn’t do anything but stare back.

“Stay right there. Do not speak before I give you permission.”

The ranger stared back. Comprehension was coming back slowly. And shame. Her hand was soaked.

“Nod if you understand.”

She nodded before she quite understood what she was doing. The fear that had caused her to end up here was creeping back, but the humiliation and embarrassment floated on the top of her mind. She could feel her ears burn. Why this? What had she done to deserve this?

“Good girl. I think it has become apparent to us both you’re not worthy of being treated like an equal.”

She stared at the witch. Had the witch ever even treated her like an equal? It was one humiliation, one horror after another. But it could be even worse. She didn’t want to be punished. She nodded reluctantly.

“You’re an unruly child. You don’t know what is good for you. I need to see to your upbringing.”

She didn’t agree. The witch was horrible, a tyrant and a deviant. Nothing about this was wholesome. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want anything to do with the witch. Nothing the hag did to her, she made her do, could be in her best interest.

She was a grown woman. A killer of beasts and men. She was dangerous. Beautiful. She always got what she wanted. She laid in this woman’s lap. She bent to the ageless crone’s every perverted demand. She was powerless, small and dejected.

She was horny, squelchingly wet, despite all the awful, arousal-smothering things that had happened to her and everything the monstrous witch represented. Why was she so wet? How was this arousing? How could this arouse anyone?

“When there’s nobody else around, you will address me as mommy.”

If she had been red before, now she must have glowed in the dark. All the humiliations she had faced before amounted to nothing compared to this. No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She’d tell the hag to off herself. She’d fall on her spear. She’d jump into the fire and burn herself.

The witch’s cold eyes bored into her. There was no mercy, no compassion in them.

“Say ‘yes mommy’, if you understand.”

She couldn’t. She couldn’t! She closed her eyes. Tears welled up again. She couldn’t…

“...Yes mommy.”

“Good girl.” The hand caressed her hair again.

She couldn’t do anything but lay there and cry.


	4. In which a bung is hammered in

She shuddered, despite the relative warmth of the slowly cooling rhoa grease. The finger circled her wrinkled hole. She felt so numb, so hollow, yet the only thing she could focus on was the heat building in her core. The finger disappeared, only to return and resume, greasing her butthole circuit by circuit. Then it paused on the center, only to start twisting and gently prodding at the muscled ring from inside its perimeter.

She moaned, groaned, whined and mewled. It felt so good, yet it was the most hurtful, torturous thing anyone had ever done to her. She desperately wanted to come, but couldn’t. The stimulation wasn’t strong enough to carry her over the edge. The desire, its denial, hurt and gnawed at her insides.

A slap on her behind peeled some of the haze from her head. Someone said something behind her. She became vaguely aware of something hot and sweaty resting against her face. Her eyes were all fuzzy from all the crying. Oh. She was supposed to do something. It twitched against her nose and forehead as her hoarse breaths blew cool air against its radiant surface.

She ran her tongue along some of its length, only to stop to gasp before reaching midway. The tip of the finger had slipped in. She could feel her greedy asshole grip at the intruder, trying to forbid it from leaving. Her sphincter could find no purchase, and it slipped out, only to return and plunge in again. It felt maddeningly good and she couldn’t concentrate.

The finger was moving in and out. The friction was unbearable, even lubricated. She wanted to come. Why couldn’t she come? It twisted around, then resumed plunging. It felt so satisfying when it bottomed out, prying her apart and filling her, only to pull out and leave her empty and begging for its return.

A throaty moan escaped her lips when she felt the second finger join the first, both prodding at her rim. One already made her feel so full. Would she be able to come? She had to! She moved her hips, trying to sink them in. She felt another slap on her tush. Her surprised squeak turned into a low moan.

Her butthole clenched, but the pressure kept mounting. Suddenly it relaxed, and the fingertips started slipping in. Slowly, too slowly, they sunk in, bit by bit. She gasped for air as her sphincter relinquished more and more ground. Please! Please, just a little bit more!

She gasped as they suddenly pulled out. She could feel her ass drink in the cold air. She cried out in anguish, pounded at the sand next to the hips the big pole was attached to.

Her frustrated roar became a yelp as strong, slimy hands pulled her off the ground and tossed her to the sand on her hands and knees. She had no time to adjust when she felt the hot meatstick poke at her butt.

She whined, begged, tried to slam her behind against it. She had no luck, but mewled when its length ran between her cheeks, against her steaming wet mess of a groin, their hips slapping together at the end. No! It had to go in!

The hips slammed her forward, taking her hands out from under her. She landed face-first in the sand. The huge glans pressed between her cheeks, pushing them apart to gain entry to her asshole. Yes! She growled in victory.

She pushed back, ground her hips against the delicious, glorious pole. It felt so good, but it refused to go in! She pressed and pressed, until her protesting sphincter ached and hurt and white dots danced in her eyes, but it refused to go in! She cried and growled, clawed at the sand, threw her hips back again and again, her cheeks slapping at the cockhead, but her hole refused to yield.

Yes, she could feel her anus give way! She could feel the flesh enter her, slithering and pulsating. This was it, she could finally come! She gyrated her hips against the intruder, savoring every moment of penetration. But the orgasm stubbornly refused to arrive. She bit into her lip and groaned in frustration.

She tried pushing back to force it further in, to fill her properly. It refused to budge. Why didn’t it go in further? It wasn’t much wider past the head, the rest of it should have sinked right in with a slurp and orgasmic bliss! She groaned as the penis writhed around her stretched ring of muscle. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t think. It felt too good.

She could feel it pull out. No, that couldn’t happen! She tried pushing back to keep it in, but hands grabbed at her hips. She heard something between a wet slurp and a pop emanate from her behind. The hands grabbed at her again, rotated her in the air. She was laid on the sand on her back with a thump.

No. She still hadn’t come. They couldn’t leave her like this! Not like this. She opened her eyes. The cold blue eyes stared back at her, glimmering with dancing orange-red light. The eyes terrified her. The lips moved, she heard some kind of speech. Hands reached out, put something made out of glass in her hands. She clutched at it.

The hands grasped her legs, pulled them together above her. Something prodded at her thighs. Yes! She’d finally be fucked! The penis pushed against her thighs, then the slimy cockhead pushed through, grazing her mons. No, that’s the wrong place. Her eager and neglected holes were lower! Please! Tears clouded up her vision. She couldn’t take this any longer. She’d go crazy! 

The penis hilted her thighs with a sudden thrust. She yelped as something heavy slapped her pussy with a wet, slimy splurch. It hurt, but it melted together with the pleasure and agony. The slab drew back and slammed in again. Another slap against her pussy. Another thrust. Another slap.

Please. Please!

  


* * *

  


She woke groggily. She hadn’t slept well. Her loins ached, especially her butthole. She was covered in sticky sweat. The morning air felt cool. Something warm was stuck to the skin of her back. An arm held onto her belly from behind. There was something between her thighs. A leg? It felt especially sticky. Her whole groin felt sticky.

She recognized the ache. Her loins throbbed. She couldn’t remember a time she had been this pent up before. Maybe she could rub one off. Her fingers tickled at the matted, tangled hair of her mons. But then she’d wake up her…

Oh shit. 

What the hell happened last night. She remembered trying to come. Needing to come. Not coming. There had been that disgusting inhuman fuckstick. Had it gone in her ass? Surely not, she was still alive… wasn’t she? What the hell. And she had woken up being spooned by that monstrous hag who-

The penis twitched between her legs. She hadn’t realized it, but it was definitely getting hard. Oh crap. She had to get away.

“How’s mommy’s favourite little slut? Sleep well?”

She froze. No. That hadn’t happened. Couldn’t have happened. The penis twitched between her legs. It was hard enough that she could feel the witch’s pulse against her thighs. There was that word. A word she would never ever use for crone. But she had used it last, hadn’t she? Why? No one could stoop so slow. It must have been magic. Yes. Mind control. Someh-ahh!

The penis dragged itself against her slit. She whimpered. Her thoughts dissolved. The witch’s hips met her cheeks with a sticky-soft plap.

“Well? Did mommy’s little girl forget how to speak?”

No, she wouldn’t. Never.

She gasped. The witch drew back, the erection rubbing at her aching pussy. Her pussy felt so empty as it clenched futilely. Her asshole hugged the thing forcing it open. She felt so deliciously full. Wait? Full?

The witch thrusted suddenly. So close! So close! Just one orgasm. Just one. She had to.

She mumbled. It was so difficult to say. She burned with shame.

“What was that, girl? You have to speak up so mommy can hear.”

“Please.”

“Please what?”

“Please, mo-,” she choked up. “Please, mommy.”

“Aren’t you adorable.”

She let out a guttural moan as the witch thrusted again. The hips drew back agonizingly slowly.

The witch grabbed her by the hair and twisted her head back. “Good girl.”

Their hips met with a sticky slap. She finally peaked. Her asshole milked the thing in her ass. It felt like it pulsed in step with her orgasm.

She could have carried over to another orgasm right away, but the witch had stopped moving. She panted and cursed the witch. She wanted to grind her hips, sneak her fingers in to rub at her clitoris, anything. But the witch was watching. She couldn’t live with the shame.

“How is my girl liking her little gift?”

“What gift?” She caught her mistake as soon as she closed her mouth, and forced herself to continue. “Mommy?”

“Is it so small to you already? Your little anal trainer.”

“My…?” Oh no. The witch had put something in her while she was unable to resist. Again. But she couldn’t fight, not right now. Her pussy drooled against the witch’s merciless erection. Her asshole clenched insistently, and the thing inside of her swelled in response. It was growing. It was stretching her out, and she had never felt so good.

“Well, do you like it or not?”

Coming once hadn’t abated the heat she felt and she couldn’t ignore it. She had to cast away the shredded remains of her pride. She wanted to come again.

“Yes mommy.”

The witch continued pumping. The self-hate and shame from what she had said burned at her being, but they could never match the heat building up between her thighs. She panted like a bitch in heat. She wanted to keep coming.

  


* * *

  


Her groin throbbed, not just from lingering arousal, but from exhaustion and outright pain. Her labia were sore and oversensitive, and she feared she would start cramping if she came again. The witch had stopped fucking her. The slowly softening hardon still rested in the sticky, frothy mess between her thighs.

“Had enough?” The witch whispered in her ear.

A pang of fear struck her. She whined and nodded emphatically. Any more would be torture. Her heart would give out. Or her mind. Her head still felt about as sticky and frothy as her groin.

“Too bad. Mommy’s big balls aren’t empty yet.”

Her whole body tensed up. “N-not empty?”

“Aren’t you hungry? Mommy could whip up a quick breakfast for you. A sloppy and sticky breakfast. It’s best to start the day with a full tummy.”

She was hungry. The sensation had been buried under everything else and now it was resurfacing. But she was dead tired and it wasn’t a real breakfast. A bellyful of spunk sounded worse than an empty stomach, and it couldn’t be nourishing.

“No? Suit yourself. Your flask is full, so you can feed yourself later.”

“But don’t I get real food? Do you want to starve me to death?”

Fingers closed on her left nipple and twisted. She yelped.

“Do I want to starve you to death what?”

The fingers ground against her teat, hard enough to hurt. She groaned. It took effort to realize what she had missed. “Mommy?”

“Good girl.”

The fingers released her nipple. It stung and ached. Somehow both of her breasts ached. Something was happening to her body, and it couldn’t be anything good.

“No, I don’t intend to starve you to death. Normal semen wouldn’t be enough to sustain you. Mine is.”

“But-”

“You don’t get to decide. Any other questions?”

Indignation rear its head inside of her, despite the lingering post-orgasmic haze and this disgusting mockery of an intimate position she was stuck in. But she was beat. Being spooned by her rapist like they were lovers just underscored it. The cock still resting between her thighs felt like a threat. A knife held against her throat.

She was afraid. The crone had made her do humiliating, disgusting things. But she hadn’t taken her pussy since the first night. Not even suggested it. There had to be a reason.

She didn’t want to find out. But she had to.

“Why haven’t you tried to fuck me again?”

The witch chuckled in her ear. “I see you’re catching up, girl.”

The witch’s hand slid down to caress the ranger’s belly. She shivered. Anxiety was closing down on her throat. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to guess.

“You surely haven’t forgotten about those grubs occupying your womb. Silly me, how could you have. They don’t like being disturbed while they’re growing.”

Growing? She couldn’t breathe. Were they going to grow until she burst? Until they were full-sized and ate their way out anyway? Was she going to die even if she obeyed the witch’s every whim?

The witch pinched her belly. “No spacing out, girl.”

She whimpered.

“No, they won’t kill you. But while they’re there, your leaky little pussy is out of limits.”

She drew in a deep breath. She’d live, at least.

The witch paused, her fingers drawing circles on the ranger’s belly. “There was this popular whore in Theopolis. One of the things she was famous for was being able to unhinge her jaw without discomfort. I don’t expect that kind of a performance from you.”

She didn’t want to admit she was thankful towards the witch, but she was. “Thank you, mommy.”

“Good girl. But I will fuck you in the ass, once you’re ready to take me.”

As if to underscore the point, the thing flexed against her sphincter. “T-thank you mommy,” she stammered. The damn thing plugging up her behind had no business feeling this good. She was getting aroused again despite her protesting body.

“But won’t I need to take it out to…?“

“To take a shit? No, you won’t need to.”

Her ears burned. This was a new low. Now the witch was controlling her bodily functions too. But she had no time to dwell on it. The witch separated from her sweaty body. She whimpered as the wrinkly, half-soft monster dragged against her folds as it withdrew with a slurp. She laid on the sand as the witch rose.

“What a mess. Time for you to clean up, girl.”

Oh crap. She twisted to a sitting position. The coarse sand clung to her slimy groin in an entirely unpleasant manner. “W-wait, mommy! I still have a question.”

“Well?”

“What are you doing to my body?”

The witch crossed her arms. Her brow rose. “In what sense?”

“It feels wrong. I’m more nauseous than I should be, even when I’m not swimming in corpses. My balance is off. I feel… tender. Aching.”

The witch smirked. “I didn’t tell you what those grubs actually do to you.”

She stared at the witch indignantly. The hag was trying to goad her. She remained silent.

“You’re technically pregnant.”

Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. She felt empty. Disconnected. The witch stepped closer to her. The sticky monster hung before her eyes, covered in frothy slime. Some of it dripped off the tip. Lazy rivulets ran down the wrinkly skin of the pendulous ballsack. It reeked of pussy. Hers.

There was one question. “Why?”

The witch flashed a toothy grin at her. “Because I want you to please me better. It’s not the regular cocktail of hormones a pregnancy involves, but I trust you’ve seen what kind of things that does to a body. You look very fetching now, but in a few months you’ll look like you were molded in the flesh-pits of Trarthus.”

Her whole body felt numb. Tears welled in her eyes, but there wasn’t any of the usual painful pressure of crying. It felt distant. Everything felt distant.

The slimy cockhead touched her lips, smearing the goop on her face. Her mouth opened. Her tongue reached out and licked some of the goop off the foreskin. It tasted sour before it went down her throat. The tongue reached out again.

  


* * *

  


The witch leered at her fuckjuice-covered toy. Unlike her, Little Hillock was now squeaky clean. The tongue bath had felt exquisite. Her softening erection tingled pleasantly as she tucked it, but she was quite content for now. She wanted to save up for the next night. Then she could properly mark her toy.

Her toy was looking more out of it than usual. She was just sitting on the sand, face smeared with dick- and pussy juice, staring at nothing with dull, unfocused eyes. Oh well, she had been pushed further than before. There’s bound to be a few splashes and smears when one paints with broad strokes. She’d get over it, sooner or later.

It was a new day. The wind was carrying in fresh air from the sea, masking the fetid, sulphury stench of the flats. There was no more reason to dwell here. The only way further was through some of the tidal caves carved into the rock, and those seemed to be permanently flooded.

Tarkleigh had had some ideas about some sockets carved into the cliffside next to the tunnel entrance. And what did you know, there were some, and they still held hints of old mystical handprints. The trinkets they had found in the rhoa nests yesterday were definitely what they were looking for. Now they only had to try them out.

She collected the strips of rhoa-meat. Otherwise there was very little to clean up in their campsite. Most of the wards weren’t reusable, so she just broke their arrangements. The first few flies buzzed in instantly, finding the rhoa carcass, but they stayed clear of the smaller, portable enchantment.

Dominus shifted around aimlessly like a lost, skinned puppy. Her toy sat with her back against the log, arms wrapped around her legs. She had found her clothes again and cleaned up most of her face. She was eyeing Dominus warily. Understandable, after the rough handling last night.

“Are you ready, girl? Mommy broke up camp. Time to get moving.”

The woman eyed her. “And why would I?”

So rebellious, right after having defeat rubbed on her face. Oh well, it was one of the reasons she liked this toy. She’d just have to be more careful breaking her in.

“You will because mommy knows best.”

There was something about her expression. “Maybe I want to stay.”

Ah, she was being sized up for a fight. “You? Here? You can stay if you’re in a hurry to die. Mommy has things to do.”

She turned around and walked to the mouth of the depression. Dominus followed at her heel. She stopped to look back. “Don’t forget your spear and shield, girl.”

The woman stopped looking as if she had been caught with her pants down. She looked around and spotted her weaponry and picked them up before hurrying after them.

  


* * *

  


The ranger was walking alongside the witch, on the side opposite to Dominus. They were walking along the rising cliffside.

“So, you didn’t tell me where we’re going, mommy.”

She stopped and stared at the woman. She was definitely trying the reach of her leash. “We had this conversation yesterday.”

The ranger seemed flustered. “But-”

The witch crossed her arms. “And we won’t be having it again. Do you understand, or do I need to spank you?”

The blush on the woman’s face deepened. “N-no! I mean yes.”

“Good.” She took a few steps forward, leaving the ranger standing there.

The voice called out from behind her. “You wouldn’t, would you mommy?”

She continued walking leisurely. “Really now? After the things I’ve done to you, do you think I would draw the line at beating your behind blue?”

That seemed to end the line of questioning. She heard feet pound after her after a few seconds.

  


* * *

  


The last shell fit into its socket with almost startling precision, despite the erosion it must have been exposed to over the centuries. The water started swirling and frothing, then receding into the tidal tunnel. Some sort of fungus clung to the walls, illuminating the depths dimly.

“How do you think they made that, mommy? Or who?”

“I have no idea and it’d take too long to find out. Definitely not the Eternals. Maybe the Karui. The shells certainly aren’t from here.”

“Why would they have made something like this then?”

“The Karui? I bet the Eternals didn’t have a clue you could pass through here.”

“Do you think it’s safe?”

“Something like this, flooded for who knows for how long? Certainly not.”

The ranger looked down into the descending tunnel. “Maybe I’ll go first then. I can cover you.”

“Aren’t you a little hero today. Good girl.”

The woman nodded at the witch and started descending the uneven floor of the tunnel. Had she just imagined it, or was her toy being bashful? Maybe the little skirt chaser was starting to come around on dicks.

She’d have to dwell on it later. She started navigating the still-slippery descending floor of the tunnel. The ranger had stopped to wait for her. Dominus slid down the tunnel, somehow managing not to fall despite the impressive bout of flailing.

  


* * *

  


An otherworldly bluish-green glow illuminated the impossibly humid depths, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at all. Details were difficult to discern past a few dozen steps, even if there was seemingly enough light.

Sounds bounced around, amplifying or hiding them seemingly at random. Countless splashes of drops dripping off all sorts of protrusions in the ceiling produced a cacophony of faint and not so faint noises.

There were traces of all sorts of life, but most of them seemed so small or so meek that they were content with hiding from the intruders from the surface. It was impossible to tell how long they had spent underground.

They passed through the snaking passages that seemed to fork and join with no logic. With nature, there rarely was. There certainly didn’t seem to be marks of human hands in any of the tunnel’s surfaces. 

The ranger stopped and beckoned her to come closer. The woman leaned in to whisper to her.

“I don’t like this, mommy.”

“In some way that isn’t obvious?”

“There’s nothing here. Something must have frightened everything else away.”

“An apex predator? We’ll see about that.”

She commanded Dominus to take point. Ahead they went, navigating dead ends and loops in the tunnels. No ambush materialized, despite the zombie’s relentless efforts to produce erratic sounds and movement. After a tense, protracted trek they reached a small cavern.

As soon as Dominus stepped in, a volley of small pebbles impacted on him with a cascade of wet thumps. Some of them weren’t cushioned by the dead man’s flesh. Instead they smashed through thinner parts and hit bone with sickening crunches. A piece of his skull sloughed off. Undeterred by injury or an instinct for self-preservation, he lunged into the crossfire and disappeared into the dim gloom.

The ranger hid behind her shield, the occasional stone thumping against the wooden boards.

“Up and at them! What happened to all that bravado?”

The woman stared at her, wild-eyed.

The witch pushed at the woman’s shoulder. “You idiot! Advance and cover me, I need to see them to kill them!”

Reluctantly, the ranger crept forward step by step, pushed and prodded and goaded from behind. The shield vibrated and rang from the impacts. Misses ricocheted from the walls and rocks. Occasionally a projectile hit the boss of the shield with a loud bang that long outstayed its welcome in one’s ears.

They got far enough to see that the attacks originated from some of the pools scattered in the cavern. Irregular patches of softly glowing red eyes protruded from the water, followed by tapering, shell-covered tails. There weren’t many of them, but they still managed to produce a tremendous and unfaltering barrage that stunted both vision and hearing.

The witch thrust her hand out, trying to point a finger at one of the crustaceans without leaning out. A miss skimmed off a stalagmite and bruised her arm even as her wards absorbed the brunt of it. She swallowed the cry of pain and channeled her fury into a point. A static charge gathered around the two of them, provoking both vellus and terminal hair to stand unnaturally erect, as if wanting to separate from their bodies in revulsion.

She paid no attention to the ranger who had turned her head to look at her. A blinding flash erupted from her fingertip as the lightning started discharging. An arch danced through the air and into the pool, frying the weird clawless crab in its hiding place. She pivoted behind the ranger, redirecting the erratic bolt from pool to pool. Second by second, the barrage faltered and then died down.

“Go,” she yelled and slapped the ranger on the back.

The witch sprinted ahead, almost slipping on a colony of primordial slime that had made its home on one of the stones. She spotted Dominus. He was locked in mortal struggle with a crab entirely too large to be natural. Its pitted shell was riddled with barnacles and coral, crisscrossed by old cuts and dents too shallow to penetrate.

Dominus was beating the thing with one of the secondary appendages he had wrenched off it. It was holding him by the torso, trying to cut him in two. He had already lost a leg, severed at the thigh.

She stopped, raised her hand and began channeling mana into her fingertip. Secondary discharges jumped into the floor and ceiling, traveling through frying kelp and moss and burning out some of the glowing fungus. The bolt smote at the pair. Dominus writhed and sizzled, his exposed flesh bubbling before turning black. The crab’s shell steamed, cracked and warped.

The crab cast aside the twitching, blackened remains of Dominus. It started taking faltering steps towards the witch. She kept up the flow even as her stores dwindled. Without taking her eyes off the crab, she felt around for one of the smaller vials hanging off her belt.

She bit out the stopper and emptied the content in her mouth. The liquid tingled as it went down, like it was poking at her throat with tiny frozen needles. Cold vigor spread into her core, but her strained efforts started eating away at the new reserves of power.

The crab failed to die. Step by step, its twitching and steaming legs narrowed the distance between them. She emptied another potion. Blue, seething liquid seeped out of the joints of the crab before boiling out on the shell. It kept coming. Its whole body leaned as it raised one of its gigantic claws.

“Won’t you fucking die already,” she screamed.

The pincer started descending as her spell faltered. Hands yanked her backwards as the appendage slammed against stone. She fell on her back and the impact slammed the air out of her lungs.

The ranger stepped over her , poking at the thing’s bushel of mismatched eyes with her spear. She didn’t couldn’t to drive it back or wound it properly, but neither could it. It steamed and its arms sagged. Imperceptible cuts from the ranger’s blade sizzled with steam and liquid.

With a loud crackle, the front of the crab slumped to the ground. Not out of death, as the crustacean’s face disappeared into its armored carapace. A larger version of the armless crabs that had sprung the ambush emerged from under the already lifeless carapace, having shed the now useless mass in desperation.

It raised its rear end to launch another barrage, this one no doubt more furious and destructive than those of its lesser kin. Then its legs failed and it slumped to the ground, its leaking fluids sizzling on the stone.

The witch forced herself up, still gasping for air. “What. The fuck. Was that. About?”

“I-uhh… What do you mean, mommy?”

“You failed me, not once but twice, and it almost cost us both of our lives. It cost me Dominus, and I don’t see any handy replacements around. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Sorry, mommy. I was in way over my head. But I saved you, didn’t I?”

“Then mommy will congratulate you on climbing out of a hole you dug yourself in. How about I just send you off to Lioneye’s Watch with the rest of the failures?”

“No, please, don’t send me away, mommy! Discipline me if you have to, just don’t do that!” The ranger blurted.

This sudden combination of sheer incompetence and strange dependence was both puzzling and utterly disappointing. Had she really been so rough as to completely fuck up her plaything? If so, she had some serious rethinking to do.

Without a competent distraction, she had to put herself more into danger’s way. And there was a lot more of it in Wraeclast than she had anticipated. Could she handle it alone, with little material for meatshields, and a dependent to drag along with her?

This wasn’t the time or the place for that.

“Fine. You’ll get your punishment when we’re out of here. It’ll be something you’ll remember for a long time. But for now, no more fuckups. Understood, girl?”

The woman was looking intently at the floor. At least she had the sense to look embarrassed. She risked a glance at the witch, but her gaze retreated back to the floor as soon as their eyes met. “Yes mommy.”

The coy little bitch. This was going to be a long and agonizing day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time, very little progress. I got stuck on writing this chapter for several weeks and I had to spend a lot of time agonizing over the direction of the chapter and the whole story. Anxiety and depression don't help with writing. I'm hoping the next few chapters are going to be easier to write. I have some fun planned up.


	5. In which a cliff is hung from

The misshapen, tentacled creatures laid still on the ground as their cooling blood mixed with the pooled seawater. There was nothing sensical about their anatomy: a red tentacled lower body, a long, pock-marked mottled blue-green upper body with a heavy neck and a bulbous, fish-lipped head with beady eyes. The arms tapered off into unusable, frail wing-like hands with long, spindly fingers and ragged, hole-riddled webbing.

They had killed scores of them, small and large. The large ones were capable of flapping their nonexistent wings, somehow conjuring gusts of freezing air. The tunic seemed like a foolish choice of clothing for a simultaneously damp and bone-chilling cavern, despite its other qualities. Not that it was a quality that couldn’t be compensated for by other means.

Her toy’s performance had been… adequate. It was time to start working on her punishment. It was necessary to properly underscore why disappointing mommy wasn’t a thing you wanted to do.

She fished out some of the rhoa jerky. It was stringy and rather tasteless from the lack of salt. Her mouth overworked itself to produce enough saliva to compensate for the lost moisture. She continued chewing as they crept further into the caves. It would provide some nourishment, but that wasn’t what she was after.

  


* * *

  


“Can I have some, mommy? I’m hungry too.”

“No, this is mommy food. You have your own food.” She kept masticating noisily. “But you’re getting punished. Hand over your flask. You’re going to bed hungry.”

The woman looked at her with a blank look. “Oh. Okay, mommy.” She unwound the strip of leather holding her flask to her belt and held it out.

The witch took the flask and tucked the string to her own belt. The lack of a proper reaction annoyed her, even as the ranger eyed her jerky with jealousy. But this was only part of the punishment. The rest of it would come later. And it would be much more satisfying to apply.

  


* * *

  


There had been a definite incline to the cave floor for a while. Finally, she spotted faint, thoroughly diffused traces of sunlight. But sunlight it was, the eerie glow produced by the fungus lining the cavern could never be confused with the orange-yellow tint of natural light. They slowly navigated the twisting, precarious tunnel. The air smelled fresher already.

The sun burned her eyes, even if she squinted, but she couldn’t resist looking at the landscape. Stiff rising gusts buffeted the cliffs as the winds came from the sea and bent against the sheer rock wall. A meandering path followed the edge of the cliff into the distance.

This wasn’t a secure route, but it still felt infinitely better than the damp netherworld they had been lost in. Here, there was no cover from ranged attack besides the twisting route itself and if there were some sort of monsters capable of flight, they would have a field day swooping down at them.

There were some sort of signs of human, or humanlike, habitation. There were occasional towers of small stones, piled on top of each other by hand, chosen so they fit together perfectly. Then there were the sticks with butchered seagulls on them. They were obviously placed there as warnings. The question was who they were supposed to warn off.

  


* * *

  


Mutilating every single seagull in the vicinity and impaling them on stakes seemed like a grand idea to her too now. She had had giblets projectile vomited on her by a hideous gull-creature that walked on pointed stilt-legs instead of feet. She had been accosted by cannibals throwing fire at her. She had destroyed the lightning-imbued totem they had been worshipping.

There was no end to this infuriating day, even as the orange of the sunset deepened. She rifled through the offerings the cannibals had left for their god, but she couldn’t concentrate on the few interesting trinkets in the mix. Not with these continuing distractions.

“Mommy?”

“What is it now?”

”Could you lend me a knife? I need to trim the peg holding my spearhead in place.”

“Trim? Is it falling off?”

“No, but-”

“Then it’s not important.”

The witch looked up at the ranger and sighed. “If you’re idle enough to bother me, how about you carry off some of these corpses?”

The ranger frowned. She clearly didn’t want to and searched for an excuse.

“Unless you want to sleep in them.”

“...No, mommy, I don’t.” She slunk off to poke at one of the corpses.

“Enough.”

“Mommy?”

“Sit down. Since you’re not capable of being helpful...”

She focused on the gem. Her mana mingled with the fell energies swirling in the stone. She directed it outwards. Three of the dead cannibals began to twitch. With jerky motions, their hands clutched at their bodies and heads. Fingers dug into skin, then punctured and sunk under it. Bit by bit, the groaning bodies shed their mortal identities onto the sand.

“...I’ll have the boys do it.”

The bodies, glistening with coagulating blood and tissue juices, ambled to nearby corpses and began hauling them by the limb. The ranger sat down onto her knees, suddenly very quiet, as one of the corpses was dragged by her, the blood-dripping head banging against a stone poking out of the sand.

“Mommy is very cross with you, girl. Your punishment starts now.”

The woman looked up at her. Usually one good glare was enough to force the ranger to concede the staring contest. Had she grown a spine? 

“What is it going to be, mommy?”

“You’ll see. Strip.”

The ranger nodded and started pulling up her top. It must have been very comfortable before. Now her flesh was starting to show hints of straining against the fabric, forming rather tantalizing cleavage. Soon the piece of clothing would look absolutely inadequate.

The hands pulled up at the hem of the shirt, dragging the cloth up her midriff. The curve of the ranger’s powerful belly melded beautifully into her flaring hips. She was such a sculpture, the picture of lean power. That would change. Not that she would lose much effectiveness, most of the muscles would still be there. Just well-padded.

A shiver ran down the witch’s spine. Her toy would look so gorgeous. She reached under the hem of her tunic and ran her fingers against her thighs. It had been an awful day and a bit of relaxation was just what she needed. The ranger’s abject humiliation was salve to her worn soul.

She widened her stance and unraveled the enchantment. Her heavy tool snaked out from its extradimensional nest, flopping against her thighs and her swollen nutsack. Feeling this full had its own merits. She could almost feel them pulse against her thighs. She loved the way they tingled, as if urging her to empty them.

Her toy was shimmying out of her pants after pulling off her boots. She lifted her gaze to look up at the witch, but her eyes stopped squarely between her thighs. She would never get tired how wide-eyed the ranger went whenever little Hillock came out to play.

“One day and you act like you two have never met. Keep taking them off, girl.”

Blushing, the woman finished tugging off her pants. The witch watched her fidget on the sand, not quite certain how to sit. The ranger’s eyes tried to avoid the witch entirely, but they kept darting back to her pulsing length and her leering gaze.

The witch smiled internally. She basked in the attention she and her slowly swelling package were getting, and enjoyed the view in turn. 

The feeling of her pulse breathing life into her cock, beat by beat, felt so enjoyable. The blood rushing into it quickened her nerves, pronouncing the sensation of swelling erectile tissue and stretching skin. Her balls felt swollen and tender. With spunk-churns like these, long-term abstinence wouldn’t be an option. Not that she would have to.

She tossed the still-full flask back to the ranger, who yelped despite catching it with no trouble. “You’re going to put on a show to get mommy going.”

The woman raised the flask to eye height and stared at it with befuddlement. It was still filled with pearly white liquid swirling under its own will. “What does mommy want me to do with it?”

Her left hand grasped the hilt tightly. She wrapped her free fingers around her shaft and started massaging it slowly. “You’re going to pull the stopper.”

She punctuated herself with a long stroke. “You’re going to pour it on your gorgeous teats.” 

Another stroke. “And you’re going to rub it in.”

Another stroke, lingering to tug against the crown languidly. She sighed contentedly. “Very thoroughly.”

The ranger stared at her, and then at the flask and swallowed. “And that will please mommy?”

She adjusted her grip and started stroking down the length with alternating hands. “Oh, it will,” she answered through her teeth.

After a few seconds of hesitation, the woman pulled the cork out and let it hang on its little string. Carefully, uncertain of how to judge the distance, she brought the mouth of the flask to above her right breast and started tilting.

The liquid seemed unwilling to leave its home, as if sensing that it was going to go to waste. Still, gravity did its duty and a long, elastic strand began to extend out of the flask. The ranger shuddered in surprise as contact was made. Their eyes met.

“Good girl. Keep going.”

The ranger nodded. Thick globs kept coming out of the flask and splattered against her chest. Some of it bounced off on impact, others found purchase and kept running down the curve of her breasts lazily. Then the flask ran out. Rivulets of thick spunk covered her chest. Some had made their way down to her belly.

She smiled down at her toy. Her excitement was starting to pool on her foreskin and drip down onto the sand. “You know what to do next.”

The woman drew in a deep breath and dropped the flask to the sand. She closed her eyes and turned her head to the side slightly, as if to distance herself from what she was about to do. She recoiled as her hands found her breasts and the layer of semen started smearing into her fingers and palms. Thin strands still connected her hands to her bust.

After stopping for a breath, she tried again. Her hands pressed down and displaced some of the spunk, which pooled around the outside of her handprints. Shivering, she began to move her hands, smearing the ballslop on her teats.

The witch could almost taste the cloyingly sweet humiliation in the air. Combined with the efforts of her own hands, she had worked up a pleasant haze of arousal. A shiver ran down her spine and her muscles contracted to bring her balls closer to her body with a jerking motion.

She eased down. It wasn’t time to come yet. The ranger wasn’t basted to her liking yet.

She tutted. “Don’t forget your nipples. They require extra attention.”

The red on the ranger’s cheeks deepened. She still pressed her eyes close. Her fingers descended the swell of her breasts. She whimpered as her fingers found her areolae. She circled them, smearing the goo on them.

Then the woman’s fingers closed on the nipples and started rubbing. Muffled whines escaped her lips.

And was that a glimmer of wetness reflecting off the ranger’s inner thigh? The witch grinned hungrily. It was time for the crescendo. Her grip tightened, her pace quickened as her breathing grew ragged. She drank in every grimace, ever little twitch of disgust on the ranger’s face. It was the sweetest of nectars.

“Keep going, you little slut,” she snarled. She kept pumping. What started as a groan built into a series of grunts as the wave of an orgasm built and suddenly peaked. Her body started contracting, pumping gouts of steaming, sticky goo out of her prostate, through her urethra and out of her meatus.

It shot out in jets and started painting the ranger’s surprised face. She tried to turn it away, but the witch retained enough control to adjust her aim. A glob landed on her cheek, then in her eye. Dry sobs wracked her upper body as more and more of her face disappeared under the continuing ejaculation.

“Please stop, mommy! It hurts!”

“Shut up and take it. You’re being punished, remember?”

Tears were running now. “Please.”

She squeezed the last few drops out of her erection, right on the ranger’s nose. “No. You won’t learn otherwise.”

The ranger’s breathing had become a piteous whine. The witch sighed and bent down to wipe off the semen-covered eye. The ranger whimpered as the now spunk-covered thumb touched her lips and painted them.

“You’re allowed to clean your eyes up. Leave the rest be. It’s going to dry up on you until it flakes off. You will go to bed hungry. And you will remember.”

The ranger started rubbing her eyes as soon as she got permission for it. Not that it helped, now both of her eyes were red and irritated.

The desperate, pleading look the woman gave her, eyelids fluttering to wash out the tear-soaked semen, almost convinced her to whip up another load to deposit on her miserable little spunk-sponge. Almost. This wasn’t about her pleasure. It was about giving the ranger a proper upbringing, so she could become a responsible member of society.

Her chuckle made the ranger flinch. Being a good parent was such a pleasure.

  


* * *

  


A sharp tingling sensation woke her. So she had been right to place the alarm charm. The ranger had spent quite a bit of time sobbing quietly before bedtime. And now she was trying to creep out behind her back, thinking she had fallen asleep. Well well, this would throw her for a loop.

“Are you sure, girl?”

She felt the woman freeze on her tracks. Little tricks like this really did make life easier.

“You can go if you really want to. I won’t stop you.”

Not a peep. Not even a breath.

“Do you think freedom will be worth it?”

Nothing.

“Say you run into a person instead of something that kills you outright. Do you think you could trust them?”

A twitch.

“You’ll always know where you sit with mommy.”

A drawn-out exhalation through the nose. “Then why,” said the voice, cracking with emotion.

Soft, halting steps against the sand.

“Why…”

The feet paused behind her. Knees thumped into the sand.

“Won’t you even hold me when I’m crying?”

A palm shoved at her elbow, trying to elicit a response.

“Why?”

Fingers grasped at her arm and shook her. Hot tears splattered against her skin.

Mushy. She hated it when they got mushy.

  


* * *

  


Axiom prison. Its decrepit bulk straddled the promontory guarding access to the only easy pass leading through the Axiom Range, which separated the southern coast from the Phrecian forest. Stories of the atrocities committed by its last warden, Brutus, had survived the Cataclysm and had made their way to Oriath.

Even among the storied monsters of the late Eternal Empire, he had been legendary. And the chances were, the rampaging Karui hadn’t cleaned up the mess he had left behind. It was even possible she would have to mop him up too, considering the restlessness of the dead on this cursed continent.

A ladder of steep bluffs rose towards Axiom. It must have provided an ideal defensive position, forcing the Karui to attack uphill through narrow paths, overseen from multiple places where archers and gemlings could rain hell down on them. The Eternals couldn’t stop the Karui, but the prison still stood, relatively untouched, unlike Lioneye’s Watch.

There were some signs of indigenious life. Hoofmarks on the sand. Whatever they were, they moved in groups. But where single sets of tracks went, it was clear these weren’t left by mountain goats. These were bipeds.

“What do you think about goats, girl?”

The woman regarded her for a moment with a weary look. Some of the dry semen still encrusted her face. She’d probably sweat off the rest in a moment. The sun glared harshly today and it was a steep climb.

“Goats, mommy? They taste good.”

“I think these think so about you too.”

The woman sighed. “Of course they do, mommy. Do we really have to go there?” She pointed at the looming prison.

“Of course not, silly girl. We can build a shack on the beach and eat crab for the rest of our days. We’ll watch each other grow old.”

The ranger turned around to give the sea a longing look. “Whatever you say, mommy.”

  


* * *

  


“I hate goats.”

She kicked one of the steaming corpses that had piled on the remains of poor old Venarius. Well, technically he had still been dead and kicking when she had fried him alongside the goatmen.

“It’d be a lot easier if mommy would just step aside when they coil to jump.”

“Step aside? How undignified. They have no business pouncing at me or my things. Useless little shits.”

The woman didn’t seem to want to bother to contradict her.

She stared at the blackened, torn fur. Maybe there could be a way for them to be useful after all. 

She concentrated. It was taking less and less effort to channel the motive energies through the Tear into awaiting corpses. The results were becoming more vigorous, and they kept for longer. The brute-force solutions the Eternals had preferred to employ did seem to have their own merits.

One of the horned corpses twitched. A clawed hand jerked, the fingers opened and closed. It rose with a slow, wobbly motion and slapped limply against the neck of the goatmen. Again. Its fingers grasped feebly at the skin, as if to scratch an itch.

Oh. It wasn’t the only one. Another corpse showed signs of unlife. The first one tore into its hide, claws puncturing the skin. Muscles twitching, it began to pull off a long bloody strip of skin.

After undressing, blood-dripping corpses looked positively devilish with their pointed horns. Their snouts looked bizarre, even for zombies. Their newfound lack of lips underscored the fact that only their lower jaws had teeth. Their knees didn’t seem to work the right way either.

They ambled around with an amusing gait since they had no feet. It was clear that what or whomever had made this gem hadn’t intended it to be used on hooved material. Too bad. They were almost cute.

  


* * *

  


The signs of ancient battle were everywhere. They stood in a field of rusty blades sticking out of the sand. Hundreds of swords, all rusted to the core, somehow still standing despite the moisture that the sea had been blowing in for two centuries. The Karui of the old hadn’t had a use for metal swords. They must have taken the time to plant them upright. Quite a statement.

The casualties of the battle hadn’t found permanent rest either. Dusty skeletons prowled the hillside in ragged detachments, clad and armed in what remained of their mortal possessions. The goatmen seemed to have learned how to stay out of their way. And now that her escort featured their horned kin, they seemed to have no passion for harassing her either.

Her new goat zombies had proven their worth. Their undead strength and bizarre anatomy allowed them to leap right into the middle of a pack of skeletons, staggering some and sending femurs, rib cages and skulls flying. She would have to see how long they would remain usable.

They were approaching the summit, and the walls of the prison. Even in its dilapidated state, its bulk seemed to grow taller and more imposing the closer you got to it. As if it was going to envelop and engulf you forever if you made the mistake of coming too close. Perhaps there was some truth to that. No one left Axiom Prison alive. Not even its warden.

“What’s that, mommy?” The ranger pointed at a wooden contraption sitting on top of the cliff.

Ah. A cage, with spines of wood and ribs of bones. An empty one.

“The prison staff must be spring cleaning. They’re bringing the furniture out to air them.”

“Very funny, mommy. But why, really?”

“Who knows. Maybe it's there waiting for a new prisoner to arrive.”

“I hope it’s not. This whole place feels wrong.”

“I’d tear this whole place down if I had the time for it. Which I do not, so we’re going through and out.”

“Around would be better.”

“It would.”

They walked past the waiting cage and into the narrowing crevice. Wheels were mounted on tall poles. Breaking wheels. With the bony remains of their last victims. Empty sockets stared down at them, their gazes accusatory and unrelenting. Still, they were up there, and she was down here.

The doorway stood empty. Perhaps the Karui had torn them off and stormed the prison itself, before deciding they were better off leaving while they could.

“Well, no sense dillydallying. Let’s go.”

The answering ‘yes mommy’ was little more than a whisper. No matter. She had plentiful zombies to poke ahead into its dark depths.

  


* * *

  


There was something about the darkness here. It clung into the worked stone and ruined metal like it was heavy and oily, only relinquishing its grasp reluctantly when driven back by the swarm of infinitesimally small spots of pure radiance she had conjured to swim about them. As soon as they moved, the unlight swam in and engulfed the places they left behind them, as if they had never existed in the first place.

Dark things had made their homes here. More and more skeletons. Some must have been prisoners, tortured and broken in innumerable ways. Others must have been guards and torturers by the traces of thaumaturgy still lingering in their mortal remains, or by the modifications made to their frames to facilitate inflicting unimaginable agonies.

Still, some must not have been there before the fall. Foul whispers echoed through the corridors, speaking words better left unsaid or thought. Necromancers, probably. Feral dogs nesting in the ruins of greater works, fighting each other over what scraps were left.

“Mommy?”

The ranger had picked up something. Round, metallic, dark. A skull cap, painted black. Oh. There was a deformed face mask attached to it, a grotesque lined with golden filigree.

She snatched the helmet from the ranger’s hand. She felt a tingly, almost bubbly feeling gathering in her stomach. She chuckled. There were Blackguards in Axiom Prison. There were Blackguards and she would get to kill them all, far from the High Templar’s watchful eye.

“...Mommy?” The ranger asked, looking frightened. “Is everything alright?”

She felt almost beatific as she smiled and turned to answer. “Mommy hasn’t been this happy in a long time.”

Ah, the ranger had not understood. “This is a Blackguard helmet. That means there are Blackguard skulls to crack open.”

She spun on her heels, swinging the helmet around. Its face mask creaked. She stopped and let go, and the helmet bounced twice with the terrible hollow clatter of metal before the darkness swallowed it.

“Let’s go, girl.”

She strode through the doorway. She saw a flash of pale blue in the corner of her eye before it hit her head and she lost consciousness.

  


* * *

  


She almost felt the crunch as the weapon hit mommy’s head. Mommy crumpled onto the floor like a wet sack of tubers.

It took a while to understand what had happened. Mommy lied still on the cold stones of the prison. Mommy, the only thing in this strange land that hadn’t tried to kill her since she had realized she had no idea who she was, or where here was.

She had been covered in sweat and other liquids of fucking. Something had been in her behind, something she was afraid was alive. She had been too scared to touch it, too afraid to find out what it really was, but it had kept her distracted the whole time she had spent with Mommy.

Mommy had been a deranged pervert, a rapist who delighted in her suffering, but she had also been the only point of stability in this mad land. Almost safe.

She had been too afraid to ask why she called her Girl, why she was Mommy. Why they were there, what they seemed to be running from. The only thing she was certain was that she had been running from something, and Mommy had been running in the same direction.

This whole thing had seemed like a nightmare, but she had been too scared to stop. To question things. To find out that trying to wake up wouldn’t work. Now Mommy was lying on the ground, dead. Something had killed her and it was still there.

The horrible demons Mommy had kept rushed in to avenge her death. A swing of the icy-blue weapon sent one of them flying. She saw it now. It was the skeleton of a giant, wearing armour that looked like it was carved out of ice. Its grinning face turned toward her.

She ran, screaming. She dropped the spear and shield Mommy had told her to carry. She had to be faster or it would catch her. The lights hovering about her tried to keep up, but the darkness seemed to be creeping in, to gobble them up. To gobble her up.

She didn’t want to die. The world around her slowly disappeared into nothingness as she tried to outrun the madness grasping at the corners of her mind. The world shrunk around her, squeezing her mind into a smaller and smaller point.

Soon she would be crushed. Soon she would disappear. She would become nothing, just one of the shades that had blended together into this crushing darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, no dice with getting this chapter together in a timely manner. Not to mention that after this I have a big scene I've been anticipating for a couple months and now I've got my own expectations to live up to. Oh well, just got to keep trucking.
> 
> If anyone wants to talk PoE, writing smut or such, I've strategically placed my Discord ID in my profile.


	6. In which there is a kiss

She stumbled and fell to her knees. Sharp pain coursed up and down her right leg and up her hip, but she barely noticed it. Her lungs were burning, her pulse pounded against her temple like her head was a temple bell calling in worshippers. Her vision swum and despite her frantic efforts to suck in and expel air, it felt like she was suffocating.

She felt a desperate need to move, to do something, but her legs felt like jelly, with pulses of hot lightning running through them. She tried to find something to grasp on the dark stone floor, anything, but there wasn’t anything besides the thin cracks between closely fit individual stones.

The bottom of her right fist impacted on the stone with a faint thump, but it only added to the pain coursing through her body. The second strike landed at a bad angle and her wrist flashed with sharp pain. She flopped down onto the floor, clutching at her sides, panting frantically.

Time must have passed. Her throat was raw, but her breathing had started slowing down. A violent headache danced circles in her skull. Oh, some of it was happening outside of her head. There were some sort of fireflies in the air, dancing around her.

Wait, those weren’t fireflies. There was no fly in the fire. These were some sort of white dots. The pale glow painted faint surfaces around her. More stone. No sky. Hadn’t she just been outdoors? Yes, camping outside, in a sandy cleft in the cliffside surrounding the foul-smelling mud flats.

It had… it had been early day. The crone had just finished raping her after she had woken up. She had put… She reached out with her right hand, but her wrist protested loudly. She rolled onto her stomach and slid her left hand into the back of her pants and between her cheeks.

It pulsed as her fingers reached it, as if surprised by the touch. She groaned, the sensation of being stretched was a distraction she didn’t want now. It was still there. It was still there, and it definitely hadn’t been that big then. She felt incredibly full.

It wasn’t the same day? Had she lost time somehow? Where the hell was she?

She tried to push herself up, but she had forgotten about her wrist again. Groaning, she leaned on her left hand and rose back to her knees. She felt weak and the headache wasn’t letting up. 

She looked around. Stone walls. A stone ceiling. Rusty remains of metal bars. Were there intact basements in Wraeclast? Or was this even Wraeclast? Had she died? Was this some sort of a hell?

No, the priests always promised some sort of unending tortures in them. She was alone here, and the only one inflicting harm on her. A prison of some sort, she decided. Or the decaying remains of one.

But how had she ended up here? She couldn’t come up with anything. The last moment she remembered she had still had that meaty, monstrous thing resting between her thighs. She whimpered as the thing in her behind pulsed again.

The witch. Where was that bastard? Had she knocked her unconscious and dragged her here? Was the hag hiding in some dark corner, waiting for her to embarrass herself somehow?

“A-Anyone there?” She called out, but it felt more like a whisper. Her voice disappeared into the distance.

“Witch?” She tried. It fell on the dark walls and it sounded like it just disappeared into the cracks between the stones.

“M-,” she began, but the word got stuck in her throat. It was unnatural, against everything that she was. Or at least had been.

She bit down and her fingers sunk into her thighs. Slowly, she drew air in through her nose. It refused to come out at first, but she tried again.

“Mommy?”

Nothing. The silence hummed in her ears. It was suffocating. The need to do something, anything, was returning. If the witch wasn’t here, she could be dead. And if the witch was dead, she too was going to be dead. Very soon.

She rose to her feet unsteadily. She spun on her heels, slowly and steadily. She had no idea where she had come from. There were three doorways. One of them had an open door, one was empty, and the last one’s door was closed.

She glanced down. It was difficult to see in the uneven, dancing lighting, but there was some dust on the floor. One set of footprints led in through the open door and ended where she had fallen. But there were others. Several. They had worn boots. But the tracks led in both directions through the empty arch and the closed door.

Oh. All the prints leading away from the closed door were further apart from each other, and made on the ball of the foot. Running. Running away from something. The choice of way was obvious. She had nothing to defend herself with.

She crossed the empty arch, and into the dark corridor. The not-flies followed her. She had to get out. She had to find help. Or she would die, eaten alive, in some god-forsaken decrepit dungeon.

\---

She had wandered around for Innocence knows how long. Sometimes she had had to backtrack for several minutes. Whoever had left these had spent quite some time exploring the place. She had encountered several bodies, clad in uncomfortably familiar black armor, probably weren’t older than a day.

And scores messily scattered human bones. The tracks had gotten almost impossible to follow since combat tended to disturb the dust and several skirmishes had spanned multiple rooms.

Then she saw a trail of glistening dark liquid, smeared against the stone. It was fresh. She reached down to touch it. Was she imagining it, or was it still slightly warm? It might have been left by someone still alive. Or not, they could have been dragged away bleeding. And there was a lot of blood. And was it still around, the thing that had dealt the mortal blow?

There was a rusty sword lying next to a pile of bones. She picked it up with her left hand. It was dull, chipped and probably as brittle as fresh ice on a pond. She had nothing better, and it would be slightly less suicidal than using her bare hands.

She started following the trail of blood. It ran for several rooms, all devoid of life. Suddenly, there was faint torchlight. Had someone bothered making passable torches, ensconcing them and lighting the place?

The torch stood next to a doorway. There was no door, and steps led up to a higher level. Whoever that had done all the bleeding had done so on the stairs too. She peeked through and up the passage. Nothing. Slowly, she began inching up the stairs.

The blood trail veered left. Some of the blood had been smeared against the floor, probably by someone desperately trying to drag themselves to safety. Every now and then, bigger pools had splattered on the stones. With this amount of bleeding, there was little chance of the person still being alive.

There were more lit torches, along the same path. This had definitely been a prison, a lot of the old barred doors had been made out of steel, and broken cages and restraints littered the rooms. Some of the cage doors seemed like they had been broken from the inside.

She heard a faint sound, like parchment sliding against parchment. And it was coming from the next room. Was someone reading a book? Could the undead do that? Surely not, with the dead stares or empty sockets she had seen on them. It had to be a person.

She had no idea who it could be. Could it be the witch? With her, she would probably survive, even if she ended up back as in the inenviable position of being the crone’s degraded sex slave again. Who else could there be? Other exiles?

She hadn’t heard of anyone else on her ship surviving, besides the witch. What she remembered of the storm, the ship must have shattered completely. Could others have been swept back to the sea, clinging onto flotsam? If they had, she had no way of knowing.

What other option she had, besides taking the gamble. She could end up dead, but just sitting here would kill her all the same. Barely breathing, she crept up to the doorway and leaned in very slowly.

The trailmaker was lying on the floor, motionless. Must have bled out. The sound of someone turning a page. From further in the room. She leaned in further.

There was a big raised platform, sectioned off by steel bars, some sort of faded banners hanging off them. Furniture lined the edges, some of it looked like bookcases. Was it some sort of a library? Did prisons even have libraries? And why the bars? What need was there to keep in books?

A larger torch, almost a brazier, sat on the platform. Someone stood over a lectern, staring at a book of some sort intently. 

They wore an elaborate red and gold outfit, with a helmet that covered most of the face. The armor they wore seemed… incomplete. Besides the helmet, the pauldrons looked to be made out of metal, and there were extensive, filigreed faulds protecting the hips and stomach.

Suddenly the figure turned and looked straight at her. Oh. This seemed very much like a woman now, the way the armor swelled around her chest and how deeply cut the shirt underneath the armor seemed to be. The neckline looked like it went on forever, and the cleavage must have been an experience up close. What a gaudy and completely tasteless ensemble.

“I can see you and your curious little glowy friends. How about you come in so I can see who I’m speaking with.”

Shit. She could run away and probably lose this woman, zigzagging through the labyrinth of the level below. There didn’t seem to be any short way out of the cage and to where she was, so she could be out of sight in no time. But did she want to? Could she afford to?

“Now now dear, I don’t bite, unless you ask me very nicely.”

She took a few uncertain steps, appearing in the doorway. The woman inside the caged platform sauntered up to the bars. She looked more like a whore than a warrior of any sort. What the hell was she doing here? She couldn’t be an exile, could she?

“P-please help me.”

“Help you? And what is it that you need help with, my dear?”

“I was kidnapped by a witch and she raped me and put something inside of me. It’s going to eat me from the inside!”

“Slow down, dear. What did this witch look like? Was she wearing a long dress? Was her face stretched onto her skull by a frame?”

“F-frame? No, she’s an exile, like myself. She-”

“An exile? A bit of a disappointment, but I suppose that would have been too much to ask for. Are you being chased?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve been wandering down there alone for hours.”

”I see. Now what was this thing you were talking about? You need to be more elaborate, dear.”

“I don’t know exactly, some sort of a parasite. Or parasites. She called them grubs. S-something about using them on sex slaves.”

“Grubs? Hmm...”

“Please, I need to get them out or I’ll die!”

“Oh, hush. Not much of a description but I think I know what it is. I think I can help you.”

“Please!”

“Settle down, dear. I need you to come here so I can take a closer look.”

She still wasn’t sure whether she could trust this woman. But was there a choice? She walked around the edge of the cage. The woman walked back to the lectern and resumed looking for whatever it was that she was searching for in the tome.

Could this be it? Could she finally be free of the witch’s grip? Maybe the hag was already dead and she wouldn’t ever have to peer into those ice-cold eyes again. Or have that horrible thing rubbed in her face. Or anything that comes out of it.

The way to the cage seemed to meander pointlessly. Or was it some sort of a defensive consideration, to deter rioting prisoners? Then a thought hit her. If the witch was dead, she could rise again and hound her even from beyond the grave. Anything was possible on Wraeclast.

And the chances were, someone that wicked wouldn’t just become an ordinary zombie. Would she have to watch her back for the rest of her life, lest an undead witch climb her window and suffocate her with a giant doubly rotten penis?

She pushed the thought out of her head. She had to grasp the opportunity to rid herself of the grubs. She probably wouldn’t have another one before it was too late.

She stepped into the cage. The woman closed the book and walked up to her.

She had a feeling she was being sized up, even if she couldn’t see the woman’s eyes through the grill of the helmet. It didn’t cover her lower face. She was wearing lipstick. Who wore lipstick with armor, and into a place like this?

“My my, I can see why any nasty old witch would want to snatch you up. Now, you say you have been alone for hours. Is the witch here too?”

“I don’t know. I ran and I realized I was here all alone. I think I lost some time, I don’t remember walking inside this place. Or what this place is.”

“An amnesic period? I see. Now you said the grubs were going to eat you alive. Did the witch tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“I see. It’s best to kill them right away. I’m carrying a toxin that is suitable for the purpose with me.”

“You are?”

“It never hurts to be prepared, dear. Now, where did this witch insert them?”

“In… In my womb.”

“Oh, what a nasty old witch. Now, this room is unsuitable for such an operation. You won’t mind if we relocate? There’s a better space near the surface. It’ll be much easier to get you to fresh air after this.”

She nodded. The thought of seeing the sky again felt almost too painful.

“I’m going to open a portal there. You won’t mind missing some of the things dwelling in-between.”

“Things?”

“Dead and particularly violent.”

Golden, glowing sigils drew themselves onto the floor. They scribed a circle on the rough surface and the lines bloomed red, then orange, as if lit on fire. With a screeching hum, the runes gnawed on the circumference of the flagstones and the perimeter grew. A soft, ethereal glow lingered in the air around it.

“I’ll step in first. You can come through after I’ve vanished. Just walk into the center and you’ll be transposed into another room.”

“Is that safe?”

“Safe? Perfectly so, at least at distances such as this.”

At least?

“You don’t have all day, dear.” The woman reminded her and stepped into the glowing ring. There was a bizarre slurping sound, the runes flared with a blinding intensity, and the woman wasn’t there anymore.

She was all alone again. Despite the eerie glow of the portal and the lonely sputtering torch next to the lectern, the bar-rimmed room seemed small and dark. Suffocating. She didn’t like this place. She wanted out right now. Not that she liked this portal either. Nothing about it was inviting or reassuring. But anything was better than being left here alone.

She stepped over the rim of the glowing circle and into the circle. Suddenly it was too bright to see. She felt the sound as much as she heard it. It felt as if something had yanked at her insides without touching her outside. Her head swum and she stumbled. And suddenly she wasn’t there anymore.

“Good.” The woman stood next to a cracked stone table, the intact parts of the surface still polished to a sheen.

Wait. She could see reflected sunlight, in the far end of the chamber, filtering through the door. Sunlight. She felt like running. Just a short sprint and she could be free.

“Hold on, dear, we still have to take care of your problem. This slab is intact enough that you can just settle yourself on it for the procedure. Now take off your clothes and pile them here.”

“T-tell me what you’re going to do first. Please.”

“Oh, this is entirely routine. I just need to apply the toxin directly and the little things will die right away. You obviously need to be naked so I can have access through your cervix.”

She could feel her blood rush into her cheeks and ears. This was starting to sound entirely not routine. Frighteningly so. “...Through my cervix?”

“Unless you prefer I stab a syringe through your stomach and into your womb.”

She could see the image way too vividly. “I like the first way more now that I think of it.”

“I thought you would. Now strip, you don’t have all day.”

It couldn’t be any worse being bare in front of this… person, than in front of the witch? Could it? Suddenly, she thought she felt a movement inside her. Fuck being bashful, she wanted these things out now.

She unlaced her boots, untied her belt and kicked off her trousers. She began to push herself onto the slab when the woman interrupted her.

“The shirt needs to go too, dear.”

“But how is that necessary?”

“Why, I need to see any somatic symptoms the moment they appear.”

She frowned at the woman. How would anything show on her torso? But she didn’t know anything about medicine, and she had no time to think this through.

“If you say so,” she said and pulled her shirt over her head.

“I did. Good. Now onto the slab, on all fours facing away from me. I need to see what I’m doing.”

The slab felt chilly against her hands and shins, but it wasn’t the only reason she felt shivers. Something about this whole thing felt off, and she wasn’t happy a stranger was staring at her nethers, or into them. Not to mention that there was going to be poking too.

“Oh my, you didn’t mention this other thing, my dear.”

“What other th-,” she started to say but went pale.

She actually yelped as a finger poked at the thing in her ass. It started pulsing, as if surprised at the touch, and she accidentally leaned on her bad wrist. She cursed and fell down to her elbows. She whimpered as the thing’s pulsing gyrations continued before dying down.

“Another thing the old pervert put in you, I take?”

“She… she called it an anal trainer. Please don’t touch it!”

“I’m afraid not, dear. Do you have any idea how close your vaginal canal is to your rectum? It will most definitely interfere if I don’t remove it.”

This just kept getting worse and worse. The worst part was that despite how awful and embarrassing this was, she couldn’t just ignore how good the thing filling her ass felt. She had had no idea having her shithole filled and stretched could feel so good, or so damnably embarrassing.

Now there was a big, heavy monstrosity up her ass, she felt so full and the way it kept reminding her of its existence filled her head with haze. Wasn’t it bigger on the inside, to make sure it wouldn’t just come out on its own? It had to be. It was going to be pulled out, and she wasn’t sure if she was going to kill her or just turn her mind into horny slop.

She almost jumped as she felt something cool against the stretched rim of her asshole.

“Don’t worry dear, just some lubrication. ”

She tried to recoil from the touch, but she realized she couldn’t move her arms. Or her legs. They were suddenly sticking to the stone slab like it was just another part of her. What the hell was this? She was naked, trapped and the finger circling her butthole was beginning to try to slip itself between the rim and the heavy invader up her ass.

“Please let me go, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Stop being such a worrywart. This is for your own good, I can’t have you jostling around or I might poke at something that shouldn’t be poked.”

The finger snuck in despite how tautly stretched her hole was stretched. “But I-ah, nho, phlease, just please stahp.” Why did it have to feel so good?

“Now, you’re going to feel a slight shock.”

What, a shock? The jolt made her teeth click against each other. What the hell? Her head swum. She had trouble staying up despite the fact that she only had to balance against her forearms and shins. “Whuh?”

“Now push, dear.”

What? Suddenly the pressure on her asshole eased. The shock had done something to the thing and it felt like it was shrinking.

“Quickly, if you don’t mind. That only stunned it for a while and it’ll reflate if you don’t push it out.”

Oh God. It took her a while to rearrange mind, it was like she hadn’t had to shit in months and had completely forgotten how to do it. Could you even forget something like that? She decided she hadn’t, huffed and started pushing.

It started moving out as the muscles inside her contracted. It felt enormous as it moved, despite how limp it was now. She bit her lips and sucked in breath. Another push. This was awful. Shitting out a monster that had been raping your ass for days shouldn’t feel so good. Everything about it was gross and demented and maddeningly arousing.

“You’re doing great. Keep pushing,” the woman said and patted her cheek.

She whimpered through the groan of her exertion and kept pushing and pushing. Gravity was starting to help, but it felt like there was no end to the thing. It felt thinner now and her asshole was making obscene sounds as it sucked air into her rectum around the thing. Damn it felt cold.

There was a sucking sound and a wet smack as the thing fell onto the slab, and another as it slipped off and onto the floor. Her asshole kept contracting futilely, as if trying to find a grip on something. It was maddeningly frustrating how empty and neglected she felt. 

“I believe that was all, I can’t see anything else in there.”

Tears had started running down her face and she could taste the snot running down to her lip. “Please don’t look in there! Just stop and let me go.”

“You’re starting to sound ungrateful considering that I’m trying to save your life. Do you want to live or not?”

She tried to twist backwards to look at the woman while she pleaded. It was difficult considering it felt like her forearms had been nailed onto the stone slab.

“I do, I do! Just… this reminds me too much of the witch. Please, at least let me lie down on my own.”

The woman crossed her arms, one hand tilted up. Her head tilted and her forefinger poked at her painted lips as she thought.

Suddenly her arms and shins slipped against the slab and she flopped down onto her belly. Her wrist still ached and her muscles felt drained. Lying there, gasping for air and sniffling was all she could do.

“How silly of me, I didn’t realize I was making you uncomfortable. How about I make you a bit more comfortable then?”

“Yes, please,” she huffed.

She heard something metallic clang against the stone. A hand settled onto her thigh. “I’m going to help you turn onto your back, dear.”

She complied. The stone felt so cold against her back. She wiped her eyes and looked up at the woman. Oh, she had not expected that, not at all. The woman had removed her helmet. She was… somehow both plain and incredibly beautiful.

Her raven hair was tied back. Her facial structure was striking, strong yet somehow gaunt. Her eyes were gray, with flares of a green bordering on emerald. Something in her eyes was incredibly sad, like they had seen lows the ranger had no way to grasp. The hungry smirk on her lips was anything but sad.

“How about a kiss then? Would that help you relax? You don’t exactly have the time for the whole wine and dine experience.”

A kiss? Wait, really, a kiss? When had she even last kissed someone? The last few days had been nothing but a blur of violence, suffering and having things forced on and in her. Weeks in a prison cell, then chained in a hold on a prisoner transport.

How could she even kiss someone now, the way she had been repeatedly beaten and brutalized? Even the thought of it felt somehow too intimate and sh-

Before she had realized it, the woman had hopped onto the slab and climbed over her. Their faces were so close now. She felt vulnerable, lying naked under an armored stranger towering over her, desire in her eyes. She found herself nodding frantically.

Their lips locked. The lips felt so warm and soft. Her eyes unfocused and she closed them instinctively. She let the woman push her back against the slab. She suddenly felt out of breath. The kiss drew longer and longer. Her head swum as their lips got to know each other. A knot in her stomach started to unravel.

The woman drew back, surprised. The ranger realized she had started crying again. She lunged after the retreating lips and latched onto them like she was drowning. It felt like a dam had burst. She wrapped her arms around the woman, forbidding her from retreating.

She only had to let go because she couldn’t breathe through her nose. She laid on the smooth stone, panting in raspy, short breaths. The snot in her left nostril bubbled and popped in rhythm with her gasps. She could taste the salt running down her face.

“You’re such a mess, darling,” the woman cooed at her. “A beautiful little mess.”

“Please,” she managed to croak.

She was pleading again, but this time it was loaded with yearning. A stranger had pinned her down onto a surgical slab, a stranger who had promised to kill the parasites nesting inside of her. She felt lost in the woman’s eyes. They promised things she couldn’t begin to fathom but couldn’t help desiring.

Fuck, she really was a mess. But what else could she do? She was alone and helpless, sick and tired of being at the mercy of others. But not placing her trust in this stranger wasn’t an option. Not unless she was willing to face death head-on. For so many years she had believed she could and would.

Captivity and Wraeclast had beat that misconception right out of her. She wasn’t the master of her own fate. The world had no end of things bigger and stronger than her. It was only a matter of time before something killed her. The only way to delay the inevitable was to prostrate herself before someone higher up the rungs.

“How about I distract you.” The woman said. It didn’t even sound like a question. “In a pleasant way, of course. You like having your ass played with, do you not, dear?”

She was nodding again. How could she be this needy? Begging a stranger to touch her, in a place like this, at a time like this. Shame burnt her cheeks, but she was looking forward to it as much as her body was.

“I have something I’d like to put in your butt, something that will have you coming your brains out in no time at all. I promise you won’t even notice the procedure. How does that sound to you, dear?”

Shit, that expression almost made her melt into a puddle. She wanted whatever it was. But still, something in her mind was nagging at her to find out. “What is it?”

“Think of it as a tail of sorts.”

“A tail?” But she was sure she hadn’t seen one on the woman. What was she talking about?

“Did you know that all the ladies of status in Theopolis eat tapeworm eggs? It has become quite the fad.”

She shook her head.

“They grow inside of their intestines, siphon off all the nutrition before their own bodies have the time to absorb it. Keeps them fashionably skeletal.”

She had no idea where this was going.

The woman picked up on her silence and explained. “It’s where I got the idea for this one. Not a parasite, but a symbiote. Utility instead of vanity. It is most convenient, like having an extra limb. Would you like to see?” The woman grinned at her.

A symbiote? What the hell? Her lust-addled, desperate mind couldn’t make much sense of it, but the combination of the words limb and up her ass sounded deliriously good. She nodded.

The woman’s upper body rose as she arched back and undid the straps holding her faulds in place and set the piece of armor aside. The ranger craned her neck to look at the woman straddling her. She was wearing some sort of underwear, but made out of metal. A smooth, mirror-finished panel protected her crotch.

Their eyes met. The woman was making a show out of it, smirking as her hand reached back and to somewhere between her cheeks. She must have undone something as a duo of metallic twangs rang. Then something dropped onto the slab with a series of tinkles before settling down.

The woman closed her eyes with a rapturous smile and concentrated. A sigh escaped her lips before turning into an exclaiming oh. A wet, slurping sound emanated from behind her as she shuddered in ecstasy.

Suddenly it all clicked together. The tapeworms, the symbiotes, a tail. She saw its head as it came up from behind the woman’s back and perched above her left shoulder. Shiny golden balls of Innocence! The woman actually had a tail of some sort coming out of her ass.

“See? Not scary at all. It only does things I want it to do.” The woman stared at her with smouldering eyes.

She stared at the thing in complete disbelief. It was dripping with slime, covered in what looked like ridged, pale plates of chitin and grew thicker further from its slightly tapered head. If the woman had indeed designed it, it had definitely been made with fucking in mind. It was bizarre and alien and awful.

She knew she had to look as scared as she felt, but she looked the woman in the eyes and nodded. The gaze being thrown back at her was smouldering. Having that tail come out of one’s ass must have been something.

The woman smiled at her and took hold of the ranger’s legs, passing under the calves and grasping the thighs from the outside, pulling up her hips for a better angle. The tail-thing disappeared behind the woman’s back.

“Are you ready dear?”

She nodded. Fuck, she had to concentrate on breathing. The gorgeous stranger was about to fuck her ass with a horrible, unnatural tail-thing and she had to keep herself from holding her breath in anticipation. She was a mess. A hot and slippery mess.

The woman looked down to aim.

Suddenly, something wet and slightly cold poked at her perineum. She let out a surprised squeak.

“Stop squirming, dear. You do want me to get inside of you?”

She felt it again, a slimy kiss at her backdoor. She smothered a moan and tried to grab hold of the edge of the slab. The tail started pushing in and her eager, sloppy asshole started yielding with little protest.

She groaned, but it turned into a pitched moan as the first segment sunk in and her asshole contracted to hug the thinner start of the next. Oh fuck, the ridges. Her ass engulfed another slimy segment, then a third. Her moan had turned into a hoarse, prolonged cry, punctuated by each ridge.

It felt too good. Her neglected, gushing cunt contracted around nothing as she stopped being able to feel the individual segments. They blurred together into a continuous stream of being forced open and clamping shut, ever bigger and bigger. It must have gotten halfway up her guts.

The thought of the thing poking out through her mouth sent her over the edge. Last vestiges of the world around her disappeared, swept away by the intense, rhythmic hammering her ass had started taking.

She became vaguely aware of something being said in her ear. “Hu-uh?” Was the thing she managed to say before she had to resume panting desperately.

“I said you’re already having fun, dear. How about another kiss?”

She pulled the woman into a hungry embrace, unbalancing her, and they fell into a pile of slobbering, quivering rut. She plunged her tongue into the woman’s mouth, who sucked on it and chewed at it gently before releasing it and reciprocating.

The maelstrom inside her ass continued and it felt like the sensations at her opposite extremes were pulling her mind apart. Want, want was the only thing she could understand right now. Somewhere in the distance she heard another metallic clink.

The woman’s arms closed her into a tight embrace. Her mind skipped a beat. She was suddenly even fuller. She mewled into the kiss in confused bliss. Then yelped into it. She felt a sharp stab inside of her, then a cold numbness started spreading.

The tail doubled its efforts, playing her tortured hole like a wet, sloppy percussive instrument. The absurd, sucking and bubbling noises that came out of her ass disappeared under her scream as she disengaged from the kiss. The thunder of her pulse disappeared under a mat of static as she was swept away.  


* * *

  
Something tapped insistently at her left cheek, then the right. A hand?

“It’s done, dear. Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Mmh?”

“I’m afraid there’s no time to sleep, dear, no matter how well-fucked you feel.”

Her eyelids felt heavy, half-dried tears had formed gunk in the corners of her eyes. She felt exhausted, her throat burned as if she had run for the entire day. Her limbs felt heavy and cold. She tried to wipe her eyes but her arm refused to cooperate, first hitting her temple and then flopping against the slab.

“Mmgh?”

“Ah. Your body is overreacting to the toxin.”

She finally managed to wipe her eyes and got them open. The dim, diffuse sunlight hurt her eyes and her pulse throbbed painfully against her temple like her head was a sack full of needles.

“What is going on?” She clutched at her midriff with one hand. She could feel the skin, but it was like her core was made out of cold pudding.

“Sorry dear, looks like I’ll have to take you in for observation,” said the woman. She had retied her armor and was fitting her helmet back on.

The woman spoke words the ranger couldn’t make any sense of, drew shapes in the air. Sigils made of light appeared around her and a soft glow began to leak out under her, as if there was a fire made out of brilliance under her and she could only see the tips of the flames.

Her sense of balance gave up completely, and suddenly she couldn’t feel the stone under her. She was floating.

The gesturing continued and a bright circle appeared in the middle of the room. Another portal. What the hell had she got herself into this time?

An explosion rocked her consciousness. She had no idea whether it came from somewhere outside or if her head was just ringing like a bell again. Her ears whined in agony and she saw flashes despite her squeezing her eyes shut with all her might.

The chaos subsided painfully slowly. After a while she dared to open her eyes. She was seeing blurry after-shadows and bright dots, but something quickly resolved into a shape on the far side of the room. A person. Then she saw the heavy metal doors lying on the floor, glowing and bubbling from the energy that had melted them halfway before throwing them in.

“Piety,” said the heavily breathing figure, ragged but full of thunder.

She was covered with thick, dark blood that sloughed onto the floor in clumps. A pair of horned heads peeked through the empty doorway. Hooves clacked against the stones of the stairs leading down into the chamber proper.

It was the witch. Alive and very angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was an exquisite pain to get myself to write. Half because I don't know if I'm writing anything anyone wants to actually read, half because I've spent close to half a year vacillating between various mutually exclusive ideas I might want to take the story towards.
> 
> This will probably mean that I'll have to write up more than one chapter to see if I'm doing anything right, and only release the next chapter after I'm satisfied. It will probably take some time.
> 
> In other news, I had an idea planned for a short story about the new Echoes of the Atlas expansion, involving the Maven being a lot more voyeuristic about her witnessing of mortal struggles. I wrote maybe a third of it, threw most of it away and decided I'm not going to bother since I can't be bothered to actually care about the expansion and the new league.
> 
> I'm a lore slut, and this content update had practically nothing for me. Oh well, I'll still play some, but I'll stop exactly where the gameplay stops being interesting since I have no motivation to go further.
> 
> On the other hand, I have a Betrayal-themed one-shot planned involving Jun. That'll probably be my next release.


End file.
